


The Man You Are

by DaScribbla



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Alternate Universe - Gone Girl, Alternate Universe - Human, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Jealousy, Multi, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-31
Updated: 2017-05-15
Packaged: 2018-08-12 05:51:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 23,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7923010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaScribbla/pseuds/DaScribbla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The sons of two bestselling authors, Thor and Loki have always been close -- what the public doesn't realize is just how close. And then Loki vanishes and every clue points to Thor's involvement. </p><p>Gone Girl AU. Tags updated as the story continues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A List Of Rules

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [The Man You Are：真实的你](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9395558) by [Maryandmathew](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maryandmathew/pseuds/Maryandmathew)



> I finished the book by Gillian Flynn the other day and holy shit I had to write it. I feel like Loki and Amy Dunne would have a lot to talk about.'
> 
> You'll have to forgive the bit in this chapter where I spout off a little about Medieval history.

 

> “Love makes you want to be a better man—right, right. But maybe love, real love, also gives you permission to just be the man you are.”
> 
> \- Gillian Flynn,  _Gone Girl_

Shagging your baby brother is seldom, if ever, a good idea.

Shagging your emotionally volatile, needy, controlling, simultaneously narcissistic and self-loathing wet dream baby brother has to win some sort of record for world-class fuck ups. Thor wished that there was some sort of therapy course for this, or a how-to manual _(From Luke To Lannister: How To Cope With “Keeping It In The Family”)_ so he could have the warm reassurance of someone who definitely knew better than he telling him exactly how to resolve the situation.

As it was, he’d been on his own in this since the age of fifteen: back when he’d first noticed that, _holy shit, thirteen-year-old Loki has legs now_ , and, _wow, when did his face get all angular like that?_ He was convinced he was alone in his private hell until the morning where Loki had been brushing his teeth while Thor showered (not uncommon) and when Thor had reached for his towel and pushed the curtain back (not uncommon), the towel had slipped just that tiny, vital bit and he’d caught Loki staring (um, what).

Consummation came six awful, frustrated months later in their shared walk-in closet. He didn’t kiss Loki until after the fact, when his baby brother had asked him to, all innocent. All wide-eyes, all silver-coated tongue, and when that hadn’t succeeding in melting his brother down, he’d gone for the throat. Beautiful fury with a semen-stained stomach. _Oh, I see, you can jerk me off and get your come all over me but God forbid you should kiss me on the lips, ‘cause that would be_ bad _, wouldn’t it?_

Thor did it mostly to shut him up. Seven years down the line, still continuing their sordid little arrangement, he wasn’t sure if he was more afraid of or in love with his brother. 

One thing he was sure of -- he wanted that how-to manual, or at least a set of rules for this situation. And since nothing like that was ever going to be published (not that he’d checked the internet, or anything, thank God for incognito tabs), he figured he better make his own.

_Rule One For Shagging Loki: Don’t Forget To Kiss Him._

 

Picture a wealthy, well-known family in New York City: Father Odin, made rich and quietly famous for his true crime novels; Mother Frigga for her biographical fiction narratives of Medieval queens; and their sons Thor and Loki are the picture of rich and respectable New York youth. Little doubt what business they’re going into. At twenty-one, Thor is already working on his first book (espionage thriller, how Jean Le Carré). As for Loki, no Secret Service or royal families or police forces for him -- it’s apparent that he’s looking to be the next Donna Tartt. 

The family of bestsellers and future bestsellers is, to the simultaneous disappointment and delight of the media, refreshingly dull. No messy divorces, no sex scandals. Odin Borson is known to be deeply attached to his wife, and she to him. The Odinson brothers stay as friendly as ever and it’s a common sight every 12th of August to see Thor driving around the city, following the clues of the scavenger hunt his brother set up for his birthday every year.

 

If the media knew what most of the clues were, Thor thought every time, they probably would think it was a little less sweet.

 

A week before his twenty-second birthday, Thor called Loki up with thrilling news to find that his brother had some thrilling news of his own.

“They’re publishing my book.” Thor sank down on the bed in his apartment.

_“Ooh, what a coin-_ cide- _ence,_ ” Loki’s voice came in husky and a little indistinct over the phone. _“Mine too.”_

“What’s yours about?”

_“Ah-ah-ah, you know you have to wait. I’m not that kind of an author.”_

Thor smirked. “So I’m the hapless, attention-seeking whore of an author who can’t keep his mouth shut about anything he’s writing, huh?” He heard Loki’s smile over the line.

_“Something like that._ ”

“Well, you’ll be pleased to know that you haven’t heard everything about it. I’ve managed to keep at least a few major plot points to myself.”

_“I look forward to it.”_

“I hope you like it,” Thor continued. “I have no idea if I’m honestly any good.”

_“Thor --”_

“No, seriously, that’s what I hate about having the Borson name hanging over me all the time.” Thor groaned. “There’s absolutely no way I can get in on my own merit.”

“ _Publishing doesn’t mean a thing, Thor. It’s what the critics say that’s important. But only marginally.”_ Loki snorted. _“As long as you’re better than E.L. James, I think you’re alright.”_ There was some white noise, as if he had exhaled.

“Are you smoking?” Thor asked suspiciously.

_“Are you going to tell me to quit?”_

“You know I am. You’re going to ruin your lungs and then where would we be?”

_“Fuck off, Odinson.”_

“Take your own advice.”

_“Or_ \--” and Thor knew from the tone of his brother’s voice that he was going to say something terrible -- “ _Or, we could both listen to me and you could come over here and we can celebrate our book deals_ properly.” Loki huffed with laughter. _“Brother to brother.”_

Thor couldn’t decide if the twisting in his stomach was lust or guilt or some unholy amalgamation of the two. He stood up and tried to walk it off, holding his phone between his ear and his shoulder as he pulled his hair into a ponytail. 

“You’ve got to stop that,” he said, but without any real feeling.

_“What’s to stop?_ ” Loki asked. He was having fun with this, Thor could tell. _“You like it too much.”_

“Fuck. Yeah, yeah, I do.”

_“Then come over here, bend me over, and fuck me into the mattress. Please.”_ He added that last to tug at him a little bit. If he closed his eyes, Thor could almost picture what he must look like at the moment: probably sitting on his own bed with those big doe eyes, lips pursed in a pretty pout, because Loki could never act with his voice alone, no, he had to put his whole body and soul into it, otherwise it wasn’t _believable._

“Loki, seriously.”

_“I miss yo-ou…”_

It wasn’t the sing-song tone, it was the little exhale of breath at the end, once his voice had run out and only air was left. Thor cursed again. 

“Fine. Fifteen minutes.”

God, he was such a fucking sap. The idea of his _not_ going had never been on the table; Thor knew exactly what he was and where he stood.

_Rule Two: Keep Loki Happy._

 

“Hi, rockstar.” Loki greeted him with one hand on the jam of the door, swinging his body forward and cocking his head to the side. In response, Thor glanced quickly around the hall to ascertain that they were alone and then grabbed Loki by the collar of his shirt and slung him back into the room as he headed in. 

“Quickly, okay?” he muttered just before Loki wrapped his arms around his neck and his legs around his waist. 

He _had_ been smoking, his whole bedroom was acrid with the scent of it. Thor dropped Loki on the bed, kissed him (score), and began fumbling with the buckle of his belt. Loki lay on his back and watched him, his hair a mess, his legs pulled upwards lazily and, yep, there were the eyes. Thor knew them far too well.

“It’s going to break Mom’s heart if she finds out you’re smoking again.” He tossed his belt onto the floor and kicked off his pants and his boxer-briefs in one go. Loki hadn’t made a move towards himself; Thor was clearly intended to take care of that, too.

“I wish you wouldn’t talk about her while we’re doing this.” Loki lifted his hips, but Thor stopped in the middle of unbuttoning his trousers to give him a flat stare.

“You’re my brother and I’m fucking you,” he said.

“Yes, but mentioning Mom makes it weird. It makes me feel like you have an Oedipal complex that you’re not telling me about.”

Thor shook his head. “Whatever.” He reached one hand over to the nightstand drawer and the lube Loki kept there that tasted like strawberries. What a fucking princess. 

It was all very constrained and routine in its way -- seven years will do that to the wrong sort of relationship. Thor used too much lube, Loki complained about it, but not for long because, as he’d said, Thor had bent him over the bed and fucked him until he had to bite his wrist to keep quiet. Thor sank his teeth into Loki’s shoulder and didn’t let go until he was spent. _Funny thing_ , he thought as he slumped across his brother’s body, inhaling the pine needle scent of his hair. _He’s the one who always gets marked up by this and I’m the only one who actually seems to notice what we’re doing is wrong._

“Where are you going?” Loki’s voice was muzzy, the way it always was after sex. He propped himself up on one elbow, raking a hand through his messy hair as he watched Thor pull his clothes on again. 

“I’m going home, Loki.”

“I thought maybe we could go out for dinner? Celebrate properly.” Thor was silent. In the conversational lull, his phone started buzzing. “Are you going to get that?” Loki asked. Thor shook his head, checked the ID, and ignored it. “Seriously.” Loki crawled closer. “Mom and Dad will want to, once they find out about our books.”

“Loki, what makes you think that I would ever want to have a meal with you and our parents not four hours after _this?_ ” It was cruel and part of Thor rather enjoyed seeing the look of hurt on his brother’s face. But, of course, it didn’t last and Loki was giving as good as he’d gotten.

“Dunno. Maybe it’s because you did _allthefuckingtime_ back when we were kids?”

“Shut _up._ ” Thor hadn’t been teasing before, but all his humor had completely vanished now.

“Make me.” His lips quirked. The kisses earlier had tasted like vanilla; Thor wondered idly if he was trying a new chapstick of some sort. Or maybe he’d put it on in advance, some last-ditch attempt to get Thor into it. 

He was into it, he _was._ That was the whole fucking problem.

Thor tucked his shirt in and pulled his hair into a fresh ponytail. 

“Pass.”

Walking from the bedroom to the door of the apartment, he counted to ten slowly in his mind, _three, four, five, six --_

“Thor, don’t you dare.”

\-- _ah, there we are._ A hand fell on his shoulder, swiveled him around to face Loki, stark naked and furious. 

“What the hell am I to you?” he hissed. “What the actual _fuck_ , Thor?” 

“Loki --”

“Am I just a hooker to you? Is that seriously it?” 

“Put some goddamn clothes on and maybe I’ll tell you.”

“What? Does _this_ make you uncomfortable?” He pressed himself against Thor, chin tilted down to blow cool air against the side of his neck. “How about this?” Thor tightened his jaw as Loki grabbed his hand and pulled down to cup the swell of his arse. “Come on, like you mean it, you’ve done it before.” Thor allowed himself several moments of closeness and then pulled away. “You’re a fucking coward, Thor!”

“And you don’t have a shred of decency.”

“Yep. That’s what makes me the good writer and you the average one.”

It took a great deal of effort on Thor’s part not to shove him into the wall. He certainly considered it, staring at Loki with his jaw clenched and his teeth grinding together. Loki and his _punch-me_ smile staring back at him. _Go on,_ it seemed to say. _I dare you._ _Show me what a bad, bad brother you are._

He was the older one. He had to display some kind of judgement. He had to be better than this. So Thor turned, walked out the door, and tried to pretend that he hadn’t just shagged his brother and then contemplated punching him. 

_Rule Three: Don’t Get Mad. Ever._

 

Four hours later. Italian restaurant, chianti in broad wine glasses, Odin and Frigga looking middle-aged and happy over risotto and ravioli. 

“I know you both have been working so hard,” Frigga said, her earrings glittering in the faux candlelight of the restaurant, “so we wanted to make sure we gave you some sort of celebration when you got published.”

“Thanks, Mom.” Thor watched Loki give her a warm, genuine smile and felt some part of his heart break. He was always so sincere with her -- she must have been the one person in the world who never was victim to the cocktail of scathing anger and sarcasm he used on everyone else. 

“Thanks.” His words sounded hollow to his own ears. 

“So.” Odin leaned back in his chair. “Tell me about ‘em. What you’ve written.”

Thor glanced at Loki, but his brother was tight-lipped as ever.

“Well, mine is about the conflict diamond trade,” he said.

“Isn’t that a James Bond thing?” Loki asked. “Conflict diamonds, I’m pretty sure Ian Fleming did that.”

“Yeah, well, how many books are there about adulterous college professors? And yet people still write them,” Thor said, trying to keep his tone light and conversational, like he hadn’t spent months agonizing over whether or not his book was too similar to _Diamonds Are Forever._ He shot him a joking grin. “Tell me that’s not what yours is about.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Loki said. “I would never dream of telling you what mine is about.”

“Not even a hint?” Odin asked teasingly. 

“Absolutely not.”

“What about the title?” Frigga asked. “Surely there’s no spoilers there. The title never gives anything away, it’s always the little _aha_ moment after you finish reading the book itself.”

Loki rolled his eyes good-naturedly and Thor knew he was going to cave a little. He always did, with Mom.

“Alright, fine. It’s called _Lenore._ ” 

“Ooh, I can just see it now,” Thor said, already knowing that what he said would land him in trouble. “A secret code is hidden in Edgar Allen Poe’s poem _Lenore_ and everyone is on the run to find whatever it leads to. Really should have just called it the _E.A.P. Code_ and saved us all a lot of trouble.”

Loki rolled his eyes again, but his good humor was clearly gone. 

“You know,” he said, “mimicry is like flirtation, it’s best achieved when the performer isn’t trying too hard.”

Just like Loki, to be the cold bitch about it.

“Boys, seriously.” Frigga gave them both a look that said _at your age?_

Odin, trying to salvage the conversation, said, “Loki, did you hear your old friend Fandral is back in town?”

“Good God, I haven’t seen him in years.”

Thor’s cell phone went off at the precise moment Loki spoke; he apologized and checked the ID, then quickly closed the call when he realized Loki was craning his neck to look at the screen. 

“Important?” he asked.

“It’ll keep,” Thor said. “So, Mom,” he continued, eager to push the conversation away from himself and Loki, “I hear they want to make your Elizabeth Woodville book into a miniseries?”

“Yes!” she said. “Still very much in the legal stages at this point, but I’m hopeful.” She shook a mocking fist. “Give that Hilary Mantel a run for her money.”

“Just make sure you’re an executive producer,” Odin told her. “Don’t let them oversex it.”

“Oh, darling, there’s _always_ sex in history. Look at the Tudors and how they got there. If little Owen hadn’t taken that wrong tumble into Catherine’s lap, English history would look very different.”

Loki took a sip of his water. “Thanks for that, Mom.”

“Oh, please, I’m an historian, it’s my job to gossip about dead people’s sex lives.”

Thor’s phone went off again. Check ID, ignore. 

“Somebody is _very_ intent on getting a hold of you,” Loki observed as Thor stuffed his phone back into his pocket. “Hope everything’s alright.”

“I think it’s telemarketers,” he said. “I’ve been getting swamped with them lately.”

“I see,” was all Loki said, with a delicate sip of his water and a dabbing of his mouth with his linen napkin. 

Thor did not miss the looks exchanged by his parents -- Odin’s said, _something’s going on_ , and Frigga’s said, _be subtle, let them talk it through on their own time._

_Yeah, good idea, Mom_ , he thought. _Only we’re not likely to be talking much._

 

He was about ready to hurl his phone at his bedroom wall the next time it went off, but seeing Loki’s name stopped him in the nick of time. God help him, he was always going to answer for his baby brother.

“What.”

The minute Loki opened his mouth, he knew something was amiss. His breath was too uneven and the razor-sharp confidence that Thor had come to expect was suddenly gone. 

_“I need you.”_

“Loki, what’s going on?”

_“Just -- look, please come over. I’m sorry about what I said. I want to make it up to you.”_

Thor closed his eyes. “This is going to end in blowjobs, isn’t it?” he said. “Sorry, I already went over once today, I’m not doing it again.”

_“Seriously, don’t_ ,” came Loki’s voice, fragile and suddenly so emotional. _“I just… I can’t stop thinking about us, the way we are together. I miss what we used to have.”_

“Back when we were scared adolescents -- fuck, Loki, you’re nineteen, you’re _still_ a goddamn adolescent, technically speaking.”

_“But we didn’t used to snipe like this all the time. We loved each other. I miss that.”_ A long, breathy pause. Against his better judgement Thor caught himself remembering the day years ago where he’d kissed Loki behind the giant tree in the backyard of their country house. There had been no pawing, no clawing, no hissed insults. Just lip on lip. Loki smiled a lot more in those days. So did Thor, actually. _“And,_ ” Loki continued, _“I know it’s so stupid, but I can’t stop thinking about_ how _we do it nowadays. It’s all L-shapes. We don’t touch, we don’t enjoy each other anymore.”_ He sounded close to tears.

“Loki, what do you want me to do?”

The response was immediate, weakened only by his uneven breathing.

_“Come here and enjoy me. And I’ll enjoy you, too.”_

 

It had been the cue Thor had unconsciously been waiting for -- for the chance to be nice to him, to like him again, maybe even love him. And fuck, Loki had been right (of course he was right, he was always fucking right). Doing it slow, kissing, taking the time to actually appreciate the fake-strawberry flavor of the lube. Kiss every inch of each other they could find. Lying against the mountain of pillows, Loki had looked like he was a princess in a rather different sort of fairy tale (he’d mentioned this to Loki afterwards and his immediate reaction was to cough and mutter _Anne Rice_ ). 

“Thank you,” Thor said, feeling hollow as he wrapped his arms around Loki. 

“No, thank _you_.” He nestled into Thor, who traced the bite mark from earlier in the day with a fingertip. “I’d forgotten how much I missed that. We hurt each other, don’t we?”

“Yeah, we do, babe.” Thor kissed him softly, a hand at his jaw. “I’m sorry about how I’ve been lately.”

“And I’ve just been goading you. I’m sorry.” Loki gave a little hmph of laughter. “I’ve taken to drawing little symbols on my calendar. Red hearts if I feel like we love each other, black squares if we don’t.” He sighed. “You wouldn’t believe how many black squares there are in the last year or so.”

“What about today?”

Loki gave it consideration.

“Half and half,” he said finally. “But that red half is a _really good_ half…” He nestled into Thor’s shoulder and nibbled at his skin playfully. 

“You’re impossible,” Thor muttered fondly.

“Indeed I am.” Loki gave him a small smile. “Do you think, brother dearest, you could get me a glass of water?”

“Lo, I swear to God. And if you call me that one more time --”

“Please?” He batted his eyelashes at him -- _don’t be mean to me, I’m too pretty_ \-- and nuzzled closer. “I’ll make it worth your while…” Thor rolled his eyes.

“You’re honestly the worst.”  But he got out of bed and headed to the bathroom to fill a paper cup for him from the faucet. He tried not to look at his reflection, but failed miserably: bite marks on his chest, lips redder than usual, sex hair. He’d have to tame all that before he left. He couldn’t be seen doing the walk of shame from his brother’s apartment.

More than anything he had to figure out a way to stop this. But seven years were a lot of memories to throw out and a lot of history to rewrite.

Loki was sitting up in bed, waiting for him with a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. He downed the water within several seconds and replaced the glass on the nightstand. He beckoned towards Thor with several waves of his long fingers. 

“Don’t just stand there,” he said. Big eyes again, pretty pout. “I’m only just beginning to feel like you love me again.”

Resisting the urge to groan, Thor climbed onto the bed and pushed his common sense and his morals to the back of his mind. It was an old game now. He could do it in seconds, the time it took for Loki’s legs to fall open again.

_Rule Four: Loki Is Fragile._

 

The lights of his apartment were on when he returned home an hour later. Thor stood in the doorway, blinking at the sudden brightness. He was running on no sleep since he-couldn’t-remember-when (ah, night writer) and sex left his brain fuzzy so it took him a while to notice the woman sitting on his cherry blossom-print sofa, her purse and her coat on the coffee table. She leaped to her feet when she saw him.

“Thor, oh my God, I thought you were dead or in the hospital or something!”

He craned his neck down to kiss her hello. “Jane, hi. No, I’m not dead. Um, not to be rude, but what are you doing here?” 

Jane sat back down on the sofa. “I’ve been trying to reach you all day. Is your phone working?”

“Um, it’s dead,” Thor said guiltily. “And it’s been a pretty full day.”

“I didn’t mean to burst in like this,” Jane said. “I just got your text about your book and I wanted to call you to congratulate you, maybe take you out to dinner. But you weren’t answering your phone.”

“Sorry.” Thor shook his head. “And anyway, my parents beat you to the punch. Hey --” he sat down next to her and put his arm around her thin shoulders -- “it’s good to see you.”

“You too.” He kissed her again, properly this time. She tasted of hamburgers and just a little more faintly of mint mouthwash. Thor never ceased to be mystified by how tiny she was, particularly because when it came to food, she was a bottomless pit. “How’s the PH.D going?”

“Um, less said about it the better.” She leaned back against the armrest, facing him entirely. “Come on, this is your hour of glory. How do you feel?”

“Pretty damn great,” Thor lied _(if you don’t count my ongoing sexual relationship with my brother)_. He grinned. “Now comes the editing process.”

“Uh oh. Well,” Jane said, pulling the hairband out of her ponytail, letting her hair tumble around her shoulders, “if you need anything during that, let me know. And I know your parents already did it, but let me take you out, too,” she added. “Doesn’t have to be fancy. We could just do sandwiches at a deli if you want.”

“That’s okay,” Thor said uneasily. Jane frowned and cocked her head to one side.

“Why don’t you want to go out in public with me?” she asked. There was hurt in her voice, but mostly confusion. 

“Jane, I told you, I don’t want you to get smacked by the paparazzi and all that ridiculousness --”

“But Thor, I’ve told you hundreds of times, I don’t _care_.” She touched his cheek with her hand. “It honestly doesn’t matter to me. I just want to have a normal relationship with you. You don’t have to be the big man and protect me.”

Thor nodded, knowing he wouldn’t be able to hold out on this particular battle for much longer. And when that happened, God only knew what would follow. 

“I know.”

“Tell you what,” Jane said. “You come over to my place tomorrow night and I’ll fix dinner. How does that sound?”

“That sounds good,” Thor said honestly. _Nice. Domestic. Safe. No games of_ What Is Loki Thinking Today? 

“What do you want for dinner?” She nestled closer to him, burrowing into his chest. Her coconut-scented conditioner made Thor smile and press his face into the top of her head. “Ooh, and your birthday’s coming up really soon. Gotta do something for that, too. What do you want?”

“I don’t know,” he said, still inhaling her conditioner. “I think you’re a pretty good start, though.” 

Jane hummed. “Want me to bunk over?”

He paused, as if considering it, but honestly he’d already made up his mind. He was frazzled. 

“That’s okay,” he said. “I can wait.” She tilted her head up to kiss him again and then he breathed her in again. “Mm, you smell good.”

“Thank Suave, not me.”

He chuckled into her hair and internally screamed.

_Rule Five: Do Not, For The Love Of God, Under Any Circumstances, Fall In Love With Someone Else._


	2. Diary, Part One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I know it’s safer not to settle down, but that doesn’t make it easier as all my friends pair off and I stay home on Friday night with a bottle of wine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter and Chapter Four is/will be a lot shorter than the others. I debated for a while whether I should post this and Chapter Three at the same time, but then I figured since I've written it, I might as well post it and not overthink things. So here you are!

_I’m afraid_ [Loki wrote].

_You know, when I say that, when I say_ I’m afraid _, I immediately picture Fae Wray in_ King Kong _or_ The Most Dangerous Game _. Those photographs of her, eyes lit up by terror, limbs contorted, mouth stretching in a now-silenced scream. Like Alfred Münch was a photographer, not a painter._

_My fear isn’t as campy as all that, I think. It seeps from the inside out: cold, numbing. I can’t move. I can’t do anything except just let whatever’s coming at me keep on coming. Because for me, there is no escape. It’s like the family reunion that never ends, in a lot of ways. All you want is to be alone, but here comes another bumbling, half-blind uncle to monopolize your time and tell you how fantastic, no, really, simply incredible, your mother’s cooking is._

_I wish it could be as innocent as that._

_I’ve never spoken about this before. I guess I thought that if I wrote it down somewhere, somebody might find it and then it would all be over for me. Some part of me still wants to protect him, I guess. But now that everything is drawing to a close (what’s that headline from The Onion? Relationship Definitely Hurtling Towards Something?), I think that the world will need to know just what life for me has been for the past, what, seven-eight years? I’m tired of smiling. I’m tired of faking everything for the cameras and all the rabid paparazzos. I’m tired of lying_ [stubbed out cigarette, lit another, considered how to go on]. _And I’m definitely tired of those fucking scavenger hunts._

_I’ve been fucking my brother since I was thirteen. Or, rather, he’s been fucking me._

_I need to quit beating about the bush._

_My brother has sexually assaulted me since I was thirteen and I haven’t known what to do about it._

_I remember a little too vividly how it started. The walk-in closet, the shh-ing, the kiss he gave me afterwards. A little too forceful, a little too much tongue._

_I was a pretty sheltered thirteen year old. I didn’t really understand what had happened until the health teacher at school actually dropped the R-word in class and defined it. I remember sitting there, the awful horror of it settling over me,_ holy fuck that’s me that’s what happened to me what do I do what do what do I do… _And he was still doing it then. He’s been doing it ever since. It almost has rhythm now. I know when to expect it and what to expect when he shows up at my door. Just from the look in his eye. God help me, I have to let him in. Refusal doesn’t bear thinking about. I did that once one summer at the country house and the next thing I knew, after I stopped screaming, here he was running back towards me, Mom in tow._ Loki fell out of a tree and broke his arm…

_Hi, Mom. Sorry you have to read this, if you’re reading it. And if you are reading it, then something’s probably happened to me._

_I’m so sorry. I’m so fucking sorry_.

_Clarifying that previous statement would probably be a good idea, wouldn’t it?_

_It’s just that… in the last year or so, he’s been getting rougher. I chart it on my calendar. Black squares for really violent days, red hearts for days that pass for good (I haven’t had a properly good day since I was thirteen). Red hearts because I don’t know any other symbol that would work. Not that there have been many of those lately. Black squares all the way, mostly. It’s just such a mess, all of it._

_We argued yesterday and I swear I thought he was going to hurl me against the wall and… well, killing me or raping me again are the only options these days, aren’t they? It’s like living with a Category 5 hurricane and you have to read the forecast, try to predict his good moods out of self-preservation._

_Worst part of it? He doesn’t realize what he’s doing._

_The bastard thinks that I’m_ leading him on. _Like he’s read Nabokov and internalized all of Humbert Humbert’s methods of self-delusion and victim blaming. He’s delusional, I swear. He thinks I’m the one who’s constantly pressuring him into coming over. Honestly, if he never did it again, it would be too soon. Sometimes I feel as though he thinks I’m just a whore for him. And when I mouth off -- because God help me, I have to rebel somehow -- that’s when he gets violent. That’s when all of this really takes a turn for the frightening._

_I could throw up_ [lit another cigarette, breathed the smoke out into the already-foggy bedroom] _._

_Wasn’t it C. G. Jung who wrote that shame is a soul-eating emotion? I think it was Jung. Whoever it was, they were exactly right. I can’t get up in the morning without thinking_ you fucked your brother. You didn’t want to, but you did it anyway. _And that has to count for something, doesn’t it? Intention only matters so much. What really matters in the end is the doing of it._

_And he wants me to stay single for him. God only knows where I’d be today if it weren’t for my brother and his fucking possessiveness. I could have a steady boyfriend, maybe even a fiancé by now. God knows Fandral has been hovering for years, waiting for me to let my guard down. But Thor would probably kill me if I tried to date anybody so…_

_… I know it’s safer not to settle down, but that doesn’t make it easier as all my friends pair off and I stay home on Friday night with a bottle of wine (sorry, Mom, I know it’s illegal) and six packs of cigarettes and tell myself that_ well, maybe I can date me. _After all, haven’t I always prided myself on being a creature of self-reliance?_

_I’ll be okay. I’ve told myself that since I was a teenager and slowly the words have lost their meaning until these days, where they are just a collection of syllables, pointless and without comfort. I’ve stopped believing in the concept of_ okay. _I just scrape through each twenty-four-hour block, waiting for his next visit. Because it will come. It always does and I can’t do shit to stop it. Somedays, I catch myself waiting for it. Positive anticipation, not negative apprehension._

But Loki _, I can hear you say,_ if all this is so terrible, why haven’t you tried to get away? _My answer: try telling your parents, your happy, loving parents, that you want to move to Prague because your brother, their other son, is sexually abusing you. Just try and see how far you get before the words stick in your mouth like so much peanut butter. Yeah. Tried that already._

_Besides, Thor is so wrapped up in his little_ Loki Keeps Tempting Me _fantasy that he would have no trouble defending himself from the law or from Mom and Dad or anyone, really. He believes wholeheartedly that he’s the victim here._

_And that’s another thing: Mom and Dad. Do you realize how awful it is to have such a perfect model of true love sitting at the table with you every day of your childhood? I recognize that the children of broken homes have it rough, but the children of charmed ones suffer their share of strife, too_. _Soul mates. I think if my parents were any different from who they are, I wouldn’t believe in the concept. But I know they exist because my mother and my father have never not been in love. I’ve never heard them argue without making up afterwards. Can you imagine what that does to the messed-up, abused kid watching them every day of his life? What the hell went wrong with me? Where’s_ my _other half?_

_Anyway._

_It’s been a ride._

_Ha._

_He’s so fucking angry these days. I wonder if he’s finally figuring out what the hell he’s been doing to me all these years and can’t live with it, so he’s just lashing out._

_Jesus, this is what I do with my time: I sit in my apartment when I should be editing my book and I overanalyze my abuser brother’s moods. And I wait for the next knock on the door. BANGBANGBANG. I get why horror movies use that device all the time now. They can capitalize on the uncertainty of what lies beyond that door, out in the dark corridor. The trouble is, I_ know _what’s waiting out there, I know the nightmare all too well, but I open it anyway. Always. I think the same thing every time: nobody_ really _bad ever knocks, right?_

_I just want him to stop. I just want it all to end._

_So yes. I am afraid._

_I’ve been thinking about buying a weapon. Maybe a revolver, who knows. I need insurance. Something to protect me in case all this goes wrong. I’ve been locked up with a caged tiger for so much of my life and now, at long last, the cat’s beginning to stir and snap at me. If I put a foot wrong --_

_Finishing that thought is futile._

_Something is coming. I can feel the tension between us growing, the way the air grows heavier right before a storm strikes. And there’s no way for me to escape before the lightning cracks in the sky above me and hurls me into empty space._

_He wanted to hit me. Maybe next time he won’t hold back_ [another cigarette and frowned, then scratched out a sentence]. _And perhaps after that, he’ll finally put an end to all this. I can’t help but hope that he will. It’s been too difficult, these past few years. And this way I won’t ever have to see Mom’s heart break._

_No. I want that revolver. Or a knife. Something. I’m better than this. I won’t go down without a fight. And if I do die, it won’t be by his hand. I’ll do it myself before it comes to that._

_This is a confession, of sorts. Just in case. Mom, Dad, if you’re reading this, then know that I love you and that I’m very sorry for everything._

_Thor, if you’re reading this -- you know my feelings already. I’ve told you enough times how I feel. If you don’t know by now, there’s no hope for you or for me._

[went back to the beginning, scanned over everything. Nodded. Wiped eyes.]


	3. For He's A Jolly Good Fellow!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Oh no,” said Thor. “Definitely not. I’m happy. With you. I am.” He wished he didn’t sound quite so desperate to sell the idea to her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait! Here we go! 
> 
> And now some shit's about to go dOWn.

 

>  “I felt a queasy mixture of relief and horror: when you finally stop an itch and realize it’s because you’ve ripped a hole in your skin.”
> 
> \- Gillian Flynn, _Gone Girl_

Thor woke and immediately put his arm over his eyes to filter out the sunlight that poured from the window beside the bed. 

“Happy birthday.” 

“Mmph.” 

“Come _on_ , be a little excited.” Thor groaned as, from beside him, Loki pulled one of the pillows out from underneath his head and smacked him in the chest with it. “It’s your twenty-third. Celebrate youth while you’ve got it.” He smacked him with the pillow again and Thor sat up groggily.

“Alright, alright. I’m up. And if you do that again, I _will_ throw you out of this bed.”

“Can’t do that,” Loki said easily. “It’s mine.”

“I swear, you’re worse than a toddler on Christmas morning.” 

Loki slid out of bed and reached for his silk dressing gown, not bothering to tie it closed as he leaned down to kiss Thor good morning Loki-style (messy, indulgent, lots of tongue). “So it’s true what they say,” he mused. “The older you get, the crankier you become.” He grinned teasingly and Thor actually found it endearing for a change. “Or this just because you haven’t had your coffee yet?”

“Definitely the latter.” Thor grabbed Loki by a fistful of his hair and dragged him back down for another kiss. “And I can’t believe you’ve forgotten how I am in the mornings since last year,” he added more loudly as Loki headed out the bedroom into the kitchenette, murmuring something about _getting the brew going._

“It’s been a year!” Loki called back, his voice echoing from the distance. Kitchen appliances clattered. “I forget things!”

Ah, yes. The Odinson August Twelfth Yearly Tradition, A.K.A the one time of the year Thor is actually allowed to bunk over. Sex the evening before, sleep together, the scavenger hunt that Loki insisted on doing every year, and then dinner with their parents. This year, however, would feature a lunch date with --

His phone vibrated and he quickly snatched it up from its customary place on the nightstand. He smiled. Jane, of course.

_!!!!Happy birthday!!!!! :3_

_Still on for this afternoon?_

He tapped out a quick reply, one eye on the doorway in case Loki came back.

_You bet : >_

_Good. I make a mean mac n’ cheese, you’d be missing out._

Thor smiled to himself, not least because Jane was the type of person who bothered to put apostrophes in her text messages. 

They’d met at a lecture, of all places. Frigga had been pigeon-holed into giving a talk on badass women in history and, as these things happen, her car had been in the shop after a minor road incident, so Thor had driven her. He and Jane had all but crashed into each other on their way out of the lecture hall -- and suddenly they were having coffee together and suddenly Jane was telling him about her dissertation and suddenly Thor was showing her the thornier bits of his novel. 

There had been a moment on one of their, well, okay, fine, _dates_ that had cinched things for him. Looking up from the Google Doc Thor had opened on his phone, Jane cocked her head to the side and said _you know, I’m no great student of literature, but I’m not sure I believe that scene at all._

_“What would make it better?”_

She hadn’t hesitated to tell him. He liked that about her.

He was about to text a reply when Loki appeared in the doorway, two steaming mugs of black coffee in his hands. Swaying from side to side, he danced teasingly to where Thor sat on the bed.

_“I am nineteen, going on twenty, innocent as a rose…”_ he sang. Thor snorted.

“Don’t make me laugh.”

_“Bachelor dandies, drinkers of brandies, what do I know of those?”_ Loki took a sip of his own coffee and crawled onto the bed, grinning. _“Timid and shy and scared am I of -- of_ \-- I don’t know the words to this song -- um -- _I need someone older and wiser, telling me what to do.”_ Still grinning, Loki pressed one foot between his brother’s legs. Even as his nerves crackled to attention, Thor pulled back, taking a sip of coffee as a cover. He wasn’t in the mood for Loki being Loki. Not after thinking about Jane (God, Christ, _shit,_ he was in such a mess). _“You are twenty-two, going on twenty-three… I-I’ll depend -- on -- you.”_ Loki pursed his lips and blew him a kiss on the final word. 

Thor pushed Loki’s foot out of the way and stood, reaching for his jeans. 

“Don’t do that.”

“What?” Loki asked. “Look, it’s your birthday. I want this to be a red heart day, okay?” He smiled almost shyly, big green eyes reflecting the overhead light and the sunlight from outside. 

“Well then, don’t sing like that. Don’t treat it like it’s -- I don’t know.”

“What?” Loki asked again. But his tone had lost some of its sweetness. Thor was reminded of that first time in the walk-in closet. It was incredible and rather terrifying how skilled his brother was at pushing the right buttons: if the flirt wouldn’t do, then he’d try the banshee. If that didn’t work, perhaps the ice queen would. He discarded identities like suit jackets, knowing that at some point one of them would fit the situation. He sometimes wondered if Loki even knew who he himself was. 

Loki cocked his head to the side. “Don’t treat it like it’s what, Thor?”

Thor groaned and took a large gulp of his coffee.

“Like this isn’t what it is.”

“And what is this?” Loki goaded. There was no trace of a smile left on his face. Thor placed his coffee cup on the nightstand with a clunk that sounded deafening in the suddenly dangerous silence. “Thor? What is this?”

“It’s incest,” he said flatly. He almost laughed at the sincere look of revulsion on his brother’s face. “Yeah. I know. I said the I-word. But for God’s sake, Loki, we’re adults now. Let’s call a spade a spade. It’s _illegal._ ”

“I’m not denying it,” Loki said. “But I find that if I treat it like a joke, it’s easier to swallow the fact that I’m a grotesque brother-fucker.”

“For God’s sake, Loki --”

“You’re hardly in a position to judge, Thor.” He rolled his eyes. “I’ve got my method of coping and --” he sighed -- “ I guess you’ve got yours, huh?”

Thor’s eyes narrowed. “What’s that supposed to mean?” He couldn’t know, no, he _couldn’t_ know about --

“Treating me like shit, I mean,” Loki snapped. Thor gaped at him. “Oh come _on_ , do you seriously think I get off on it when you look like you want to punch my lights out? Me with my cocktail of disorders and conditions, do you really think I love feeling like you’re going to attack me all the time?”

“You’re practically inviting it!” Thor snapped back and immediately regretted it, but the damage was done. 

“Oh, I see. So it’s _my_ fault now that you’ve been fucking me for years --”

“-- Christ, fucking keep your voice down --”

“-- and that you can’t count to ten and take a deep breath when you’re annoyed!” Loki got to his feet, knocking over his own cup in the process. Coffee spilled across the bed sheets and he threw his hands in the air, turning away from the mess. “ _Fuck!”_

Thor stood and went after him. “Loki, listen to me --”

“No, _you_ listen! I swear to God, you have no idea what it’s like for me --” Loki dropped his voice as he turned back to Thor, his hands coming up to rest on his chest -- “I _love_ you. I want us back the way we were.” He wet his lips, staring up at Thor with huge eyes as he kept whispering. “I just want to go away! Just a for a little while. Don’t couples do that during rough patches? They go on vacation or they do something different to try and liven things up again?”

Thor stared at him. 

“Excuse me?” he said. “Am I seriously the only one who’s aware that incest is a bad thing? Earth to Loki, we’re _fucking_ each other and most well-adjusted people don’t -- ” 

“ _And who’s the one who got that started?”_ Loki shrieked. _“Who?_ Just tell me that _\--_ mmph --” Thor shoved his hand over his brother’s mouth and pinned him against the nearest wall to keep him from struggling. 

“Shut _up,_ what if somebody hears? _”_

Loki fought against him for a moment, but not for long. Slumping against him, he buried his head in Thor’s shoulder, his mop of black hair tickling his chin. The pine needle scent in his nose. Thor groaned miserably. He was his older brother, dammit, he was supposed to take care of him, not hurt him like this… He wrapped his arms around him more tightly. 

“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I shouldn’t have…” He pressed his lips to the top of his head, but Loki struggled out of his grip.

“Don’t _touch_ me.” His voice echoed off the walls, as did his footfalls as he ran from the bedroom. Thor didn’t hesitate to follow.

“Loki, wait --”

“Get out!” He was sobbing now, taking great lungfuls of air as he braced his hands against the wall in the corridor, shoulders heaving. 

“Loki, I swear to God --” But Loki shoved him away and strode purposefully into the kitchen. Thor followed him and watched for a minute or so as he clattered out pans and the egg carton from the fridge. “What are you doing?” he asked finally.

“I’m making breakfast,” he snapped, roughly wiping tears from his eyes. 

Leave it to Loki to make such an innocuous sentence sound like a punch in the goddamned mouth. Thor closed his eyes and tried to concentrate on his breathing. Count to ten like he said. 

_One, two, three,_ Jesus Christ, I could wring his neck sometimes _, six, seven, eight, nine --_

On the tenth second, he strode forward and wrapped his arms around Loki from behind, ignoring his brother’s small and involuntary squeak of surprise as he pulled him close.

“I’m sorry.”

“Fuck you, Thor.” He sounded tired. “Seriously.” But his breath hitched as Thor nibbled his earlobe and soon he set down the frying pan on the stove with an air of resignation while Thor slid one hand into his dressing gown to stroke a nipple. Loki groaned, rolling his arse back against Thor, who felt his blood cells immediately hitch a ride southward. It was so easy to pretend that everything about this was alright, that they were just two men in an apartment with no further ties than that. He was a master at self-delusion.

He twisted his neck down to kiss the side of his neck, but Loki had other ideas, as usual, and they both slammed against the nearest wall, Loki wincing at the contact of his head against the robin’s egg-striped wallpaper before pulling Thor against himself. 

Their climaxes were soon and unremarkable and Loki pushed past Thor as if they hadn’t just frotted their way to orgasm against the kitchen wall. Thor tucked himself back into his trousers, eyes fixed firmly on the wallpaper. Behind him, the tap turned on and then off, water splashing into the sink. He turned around. Loki was drying his hands on a dish towel. 

“What’re you doing?” he asked.

His tone was matter-of-fact and impartial. “Making breakfast.”

Nobody likes to upset a tradition.

 

_How does one,_ Thor wondered several hours later as he sat in front of his laptop in his own kitchen, _put an end to a long-term incestuous affair?_

Christ. He could almost understand why Loki had flinched when he’d used the word earlier that morning. There was something unsettling and needling in admitting out loud that you were so vile, so base, as to fuck your own brother. 

_We wrap ourselves in blankets of good intentions_ , Thor thought. _We do bad things and then we tell ourselves that it’s okay, that_ we _didn’t mean to do it, or if we did, we did it without the intention to cause harm. Because we’re the Good guys, right? And Good guys never_ mean _to hurt anyone._

Thor’s eyes glazed over for a moment, then he cursed at his own eloquence and quickly typed the sentence into the header of his document, so he could find a convenient place to stick it in. 

Dammit, he was supposed to be editing. He had a fucking book to polish up and actually make legible for the consumption of the general public.

“We never mean to do anything bad,” he repeated out loud, staring at his computer screen. He could hear Loki’s response in his ear, as well as see the taunting toss of his head, the crooked smile.

_“Yes, darling, but that’s hardly to the purpose, is it?”_

How did one go about ending a long-term incestuous relationship? Seriously. Did you call it up, say, _it’s not you, it’s me_ , and then just go on with your life? Ugh. Somebody really had to write that manual. No amount of personal rules were going to drag him out of this pit.

And Christ, what would the family reunions be like? Awkward smiles, worse handshakes, infernal embraces, all with that eye contact that screams _we fucked once upon a time and we liked it!_ All while Mom carves the turkey and Dad pours the merlot. Yeah. That would go so fucking well.

But more than that, he’d miss their closeness. How did one return to normal? They hadn’t been that for countless years -- sometimes, Thor wondered if they ever had been to begin with. What was life like for normal siblings? Did they drift apart as the years went on? As the sad fuck-up who’d had the misfortune to fall head-over-heels in love with his own brother, Thor had no clue.

He would miss that closeness so much, even with Jane there. And the loss of it would probably destroy Loki. As much as his brother didn’t like to admit it, he needed people, intimacy, something to lie beside. 

Jane. Tiny, mighty Jane with her frayed jeans and her macaroni and her steminist rants that came out when she’d had a couple. Clever, resourceful, _gorgeous_ Jane, with her dissertation, her grad student apartment, and the way she yanked him down by his shirt collar when she wanted to kiss him, a mannerism he found adorable even as he exclaimed at her unlikely strength. 

Jane. He was in love with her. 

And wasn’t that just the icing on the shit cake?

 

Noon. Jane’s apartment did, indeed, have the look of belonging to a grad student who spent most of her time in the observatory. She did, indeed, make fabulous macaroni and cheese. 

“Sorry about all the clutter.” She moved aside several large books (Stephen Hawking, Roger Penrose) so Thor could fit his elbows in at the table in the kitchen. 

“I’m pretty used to it by now. You’re fine.” Thor settled back in his chair and contented himself with just looking at her, taking in the little diamond earrings she wore and the pattern of her gray knit sweater that was a size too large for her. She caught his eye.

“What is it?”

He shook his head, tearing his gaze away as he transferred his gaze to his plate, which was nearly scraped clean. _Don’t stare, normal people don’t stare._

“Just… it’s good to see you. Really good.”

“The editing process been that bad to you?” she joked. Then she grew more serious. “For real, are you okay? You haven’t been answering my texts much. I mean, if you want some space, that’s --”

“Oh no,” said Thor. “Definitely not. I’m happy. With you. I am.” He wished he didn’t sound quite so desperate to sell the idea to her. 

“You look kind of tired.”

“Been up late,” he said. “Editing.” He was doing well, all things considered; about half of that statement was true. The only glaring difference between reality and _What Thor Odinson Wishes His Life Could Be_ was the part where he spent an obscene amount of time eating his brother out last night. The knowledge settled on him anew: he had to end it with Loki. There was no way he could keep the lid on this thing with Jane for long, and when it did come out, he wanted everything more or less clear with him. And if his brother never really warmed up to his girlfriend, well… Loki was like that, wasn’t he? Fickle. Nobody would bat an eyelash.

“What are you thinking about?” Jane asked.

“Sorry,” he said. “Got lost in my book again. How’s your dissertation?” he asked, not wanting to dominate the conversation with himself. 

“Nearly there,” she said. “It’s requiring an ungodly amount of research and just when you think you can keep going, you realize there’s an entire aspect of the problem you haven’t solved yet. And it doesn’t help that I’m kind of a pantser when it comes to writing. But we’re getting there.”

“You’ll do great,” he said and meant it. 

Jane cocked her head to the side, studying his face with the expression she usually wore when doing math, as though Thor were a complicated algebra problem she could solve if she used enough logic and had a really big eraser. Now it was his turn to ask _what is it?_

“Nothing,” she said, in that tone that meant it was probably something. “It’s just that… I spend so much of my time wondering what you’re thinking. You’re like a brick wall sometimes.” She coughed. “And I don’t mean that you’re not affectionate because you totally are. It’s not that. I just feel as though there’s something you’re not telling me.” She reached over and touched his hand with her fingertips. “If you ever want to talk, I’m always here. You know that, right?”

“I know.”

Sometimes he wondered if he and Loki were so obvious that she, along with the entirety of the town and perhaps the country, had already figured them out. And all that was left now was to drop hints that she knew until Thor figured things out and came clean.

“Anyway --” Jane waved a hand as if magicking away the last few minutes -- “do you want your present?”

“Certainly,” he said. 

Jane stood up and went into the kitchen, bending over to open one of the floor cabinets. “I didn’t wrap it,” she warned. “I didn’t want to scare you off with my supreme lack of skills in that department.”

“Not a problem.” 

“Incoming!”

Over the partition between the kitchen and the tiny makeshift dining room sailed a large, bright red pillow that read in white and gold stitching: GRAMMAR ERRORS MAKE ME [SIC]. 

Thor laughed out loud, then winced as the sound bounced and boomed off the walls. 

“That’s one of the most teachery jokes I’ve ever read,” he said. “I love it.”

“Oh! And…” Jane’s head rose like the periscope of a submarine over the partition and she waved a hand that bore a sinfully large cupcake that was smothered in bright blue frosting. “Want one?”

“Yes, please!” She came back into the dining room with two and plunked one onto Thor’s plate. 

“They’re store-bought,” she said apologetically as she retook her seat. “I didn’t have time to bake anything.”

“Mmm, no, this is great.” Thor licked some of the frosting off his fingers. “And honestly… I have a confession to make.” He looked around and lowered his voice conspiratorially -- “I actually prefer store buttercream frosting to homemade.”

“Oh thank God, somebody else!” Jane laughed. “I always feel like such a heretic when I tell people that!”

On impulse, Thor leaned over the cramped little table and kissed her, once, very briefly, on the lips. She gave him a little smile with teeth stained with Blue Dye No. 1.

“What was that for?”

“For being you.”

 

An hour later saw Thor back in his own apartment, scrubbing furiously at his teeth to rid any trace of tell-tale frosting, when his cell phone rang. 

“Hi, Mom.”

_“Hi, sweetie. Happy birthday.”_

“Thanks.”

_“We’re heading out to the restaurant now, so I hope you two are gearing up for the hunt because your father is_ very _hungry today and you know what he’s like when he’s hungry.”_

Thor nodded, grinning. “Collicky.”

“ _Precisely,”_ said Frigga as a muffled _I heard that!_ sounded in the background.

“I’m on my way to his place now.”

_“Listen, sweetie?”_

“Yeah, Mom?”

_“Is…”_ She was clearly choosing her words very carefully. _“Is everything okay between you and Loki?”_

Thor nodded and then remembered that she couldn’t see him. “Yeah,” he said, a little bemused and a lot guilty. “Yeah, everything’s fine.”

 

Thor texted Loki once he got into the elevator of his apartment and closed his eyes, leaning back against the cool metal wall as he tried to ignore the ugly sensation of weightlessness. Focus on the good stuff, try to tune out the bad. That was how you survived with Loki for a brother.

They were going to fix this. They were going to be brothers again. This scavenger hunt would be the start of it. 

Just two brothers, playing a normal birthday game. 

He really hoped Loki wouldn’t make all the clues veiled references to places where they’d gotten off over the years. Not that he’d ever done that before, or anything.

The door to Loki’s apartment was open. 

This was disturbing for several reasons: one, because Loki was a private person that he exasperated  everyone around him, constantly insisting that doors be shut and latched, and keeping all his personal details to himself; two, because Loki was a creature of habit and Thor couldn’t imagine him ever forgetting to close a door; and three, because the door itself wasn’t simply open. It hung. It _gaped_.

Thor entered cautiously, calling Loki’s name. 

It didn’t happen the way you saw it in movies or TV shows. The maid dropping the tray, the dramatic screech. The person who finds the body immediately knowing that something is wrong. Thor got halfway down the hallway of the apartment before realizing anything was amiss.

The glass coffee table in the den was smashed to bits, as was one vases that had stood on the mantle, a gift from Frigga. Shards sprayed across the cream-colored carpet, crunching underneath the soles of Thor’s shoes as he stared around the apartment. The ottoman by the Victorian-style wing chair was tipped over. The mirror that hung over the sofa was fractured in several places. One of the curtains had been torn down and puddled on the floor like a green puddle of algae, the rod broken and hanging at an angle above.

The kitchen and the bedroom were all as pristine as ever, save for the coffee stain on the bedsheets from earlier that morning and the dishes in the sink.

And Loki.

Where the hell was Loki.

Calling his name yielded no results. In the end, Thor went from room to room, behind the bathroom curtain, in the linen closets, beneath the bed, _anywhere_ because, in that moment, no part of the apartment seemed too unlikely. 

He sank down on the bed and buried his head in his hands. Then began the search all over again.

Nothing. 

Blinking back hot, panicky tears and trying to keep his hands steady, Thor pulled out his phone and quickly dialed the number for the police, muttering curses under his breath. The woman who picked up had a low, flat voice,  unassuming and uncompromising. Yes. He could deal with this. He could. He had to. Oh, Lo... 

“Hello? Yes. This is Thor Odinson. I -- oh _God_ \-- I’m afraid I have to -- I have to report my brother missing.”


	4. Diary, Part Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You know, if I’m really not careful, this starts to normalize.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait! Life's been crazy. I have pretty much nothing else to say about this chapter, except that, in case you didn't pick up on this already, there's going to be a lot of discussion of sexual assault throughout this fic. Just so's you're aware.

_So it’s all gone to shit, basically_ [Loki wrote].

_I wasn’t going to write any more of this_. _Everything I have to say was said last time. But I’m finding that to keep a diary is a grounding thing. You put your thoughts and your fears, your past and your present, your hopes and your dreams down on paper and suddenly it doesn’t seem quite so overwhelming anymore. The monster hiding beneath your bed shrinks that small, yet oh-so significant bit._

_So._

_Where to begin?_

_I wonder if I should start copying poetry in here. Fit the mood a bit more. Plath, Dickinson, Tennyson and the rest of that sad, sorry, opium-addicted lot. I don’t know that Dickinson would have done opium though. But who knows? She might have been the life of the party, up there in her little bedroom._

_Sorry this is so off-topic. I took Nyquil about half an hour ago, so if I’m rambling a little bit (or a lot), that’s why._

_Where to begin, what to say._

_Oh yes. Shit._

_I tried to see about that gun. Turns out that if you ask around discreetly, make some under-the-radar searches, you can get straight to the black market? I don’t like gun shops. And anyway, I believe in gun restriction for all and have been at least mildly vocal about it, so it wouldn’t do to see me going into one of those places. That looks bad. And God knows, we have to look normal, don’t we? Not even a hair can be out of place._

_To cut a very long story short -- I didn’t get the gun. The man behind the counter, so to speak, said that that quote_ wasn’t his area _unquote._ _Apparently everybody in that line of work has their own little niche. Who knew?_

_So here he is. Loki, right back where he started. Do not pass GO, do not collect two hundred dollars._

_Jesus Christ, I am so fucked. I am. So. Fucked_ [sighed deeply, in and out].

_His birthday is soon. Like, right around the corner, blink-and-suddenly-it’s-upon-you, soon. This means, of course, that I amp up the charade that I’ve perfected for years now: treasure hunt with clues, out to dinner with the family, pretend that he didn’t stay over the night before and didn’t fuck my brains out. Hah. You know, a year ago, if we were married, it would have been our fifth anniversary. It’s a testament both to how my brain works and how things go with us that I half-expected him to fuck me and say something like,_ there’s some wood for you! Happy fifth! _Like an abnormally gross Punch and Judy show (not that Punch and Judy is ever not gross)._ “That’s the way to do it!”

_You know, if I’m really not careful, this starts to normalize. For all intents and purposes, it_ is _normal for me._

_I could never go to a therapist, I could never talk to anyone about this, and God knows that one misstep from either of us means the end of life as we know it. But when you’re living life the way I do -- already neurodiverse, already anxious, with PTSD and general self-loathing tacked on like an afterthought -- you need some kind of grounding technique. So… I read a lot. I go online, I look at forums for assault victims. Never participate, though. That’s my rule: do not interfere. Observe the Prime Directive. You are too easy to trace._

_It hurts. Those people who have been through the same things I have, some much worse, and they can talk about it. They can trust in the anonymity of the internet and a generic, fake username, and spill all the dark things that were done to them, and ask for help. Jane Doe, whose boyfriend beat her bloody. John Smith, whose ex didn’t understand that safe words are important. And they can get advice. They can be comforted with words meant solely for them. And here I am, leeching off their counseling. Stealing those warm, soft, gentle words for myself, like a magpie._ Remember, your feelings are valid. It’s okay to be angry, it’s okay to want them gone, it’s okay to sit on the floor and cry for a while at the unfairness of your life. It’s all okay. _Leeching the words, hoping and praying that somehow they’ll stick in my brain and one night, not far from now, I will sit upright in my bed and say I GET IT NOW. I THINK I BEGIN TO BELIEVE THAT I AM NOT TO BLAME._

_They’re right, I know. I know. But I have spent years, actual years, hearing that my pretty girl legs got me into this mess. Kind of hard not to internalize it at this point._

_Still got ‘em, by the way. I’m stretching one out now, wiggling my toes, arching my foot. Yeah. Look at that. I’m delicious and I know it. This is what happens to pretty boys._

_Sorry. Nyquil._

_I wonder what he’s going to do this time. He’s usually pretty gentle -- not exactly what you’d expect from a serial rapist, but there you are -- but nowadays… Look, I tried to get that gun for a reason. This could be it. Final birthday. Final treasure hunt. Am I even going to have time to set up the clues this year? Time will tell._

_I really should stop the entry here. Dramatic effect and all that. But no. No. I need you (You. You. why do I assume that people are reading this? This isn’t a blog or something. But still it stands:_ you. YOU) _to understand just what he’s done to me_ [lit another cigarette, closed eyes and considered].

_He’s a big man with a smile that makes people melt. He’s a guy with the capacity to look pants-wettingly terrifying, but gives money to homeless guys on the street and is amazing with kids. He’s a freakishly talented writer. And I can’t breathe when he’s in the same room as me. When he comes near me, my heart stops. I wait for the moment when he snaps, when he tries to go for me in public, but obviously it never comes. We’re too clever for that. We’re so fucking smart. I hate us. I want to punch us in our mouths. Us in our suits and our family photos and our treasure hunts and restaurant outings and our bright, easy smiles. How fake. How fucking unforgivably fake we are._

_That’s in public._

_In private, Thor wears a very different face._ I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead / I think I made you up inside my head! _He’s still smart, he’s still, in so many little, manipulative ways, a gentleman. The only difference is that the mask is off. Along with the shoes and the tie and the boxer-briefs and, oh, look at that: I’m pinned and I can’t fucking breathe! I’ll say this: semen is bathwater warm when it hits your throat? It’s one of those things you never think about until you have_ _to, but when it happens to you, you realize it couldn’t be any other way._

_Now, I don’t know how anybody else handles this sort of thing, but_ I _always like to imagine Daniel Craig gulping down salt water in_ Casino Royale _to unpoison himself. Lends a smooth, 007-ness that this shit show lacks, otherwise._

_I really wish Thor hadn’t chosen the espionage genre. I actually really enjoy those_ [got up and paced for a while. Then came back].

_I’m nineteen. I’M NINETEEN FUCKING YEARS OLD, FOR GOD’S SAKE. I can’t even drink legally and already I have to deal with this shit. This_ shit. _Why did I have to be the one to get a brother like him? Why me? WHY?_

_When I was little, I would play this game with Mom -- well, I don’t know if it really counts as a game -- where I’d recite random acts that would progressively got weirder and more depraved (kids say the darndest things) and each time I’d ask her if she’d still love me if I did them. And every time, the same reply:_ of course. I will always love you, Loki. _But she never said anything about forgiveness and I, being all of four at the time, didn’t think to ask her about that part of the arrangement. She’ll love me. Sure, sure. But could she forgive me for everything that I’ve had to do? What kind of mother could_ [changed position, lying on stomach over pillows, chewed pen, realized he was doing it, and stopped]. 

_I’m lying on the bed naked as I write this. I’ve read that some rape victims become more conscious of their bodies, but not me. I’ve never been uncomfortable in my own skin, I’ve never wanted to hide from my reflection. But there are little scars all over me from Thor or because of Thor. Direct and indirect. The bite marks on my forearm (those are from me, I’ll let you do the math), the bruises on my hips (ugh, ugh, ugh), the hickey several inches from my left nipple, and… well. Let’s not go any further._

_I don’t know anymore. My future is a great big question mark and I’m beginning to suspect that I won’t have to mark my calendar with squares and hearts for much longer. What will the last day be, I wonder?_

_Maybe I’m overreacting? But as time goes on, I think less and less that I’m being histrionic and more and more that I’m being practical. Wise. Logical. I catch him look at me with those eyes and I wonder to myself,_ how long? How long until you do it? _Those eyes. Hating and adoring, all at once._

_I don’t want his adoration._

_So. Yeah._

_If you find me and I’m dead… Sorry. That’s not funny._


	5. 48 Hours

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For one wild expanse of three seconds, Thor envisioned his future if he told the truth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm baaaack. Warning in this one for discussions of blood and some non-negotiated erotic asphyxiation (ish).

> “The worst feeling: when you just have to wait and prepare yourself for the lie.” - Gillian Flynn, _Gone Girl_

Okay, make that _two_ manuals that really had to be written: how to cope with your incestuous relationship, and how to cope when your brother disappears into thin air.

“So, let me get this straight -- you reported a disappearance before even calling to make sure that your brother wasn’t just out on an errand?”

Officer Maria Hill looked infuriatingly calm where she sat at Loki’s kitchen table, even with the stench of the tea kettle burning. Thor had somehow missed that during his initial search, which was incredible because it stank to high heaven. Sitting across from Hill, Thor clenched and unclenched his fists, trying to stay calm and failing tremendously.

“I didn’t think. I saw the mess and when he wasn’t in the apartment… I panicked.”

“I understand,” Hill said. “And you’re sure that he’s not just --”

“You don’t understand,” Thor interrupted. “My brother is one of the most efficient people I’ve ever known. He would never have left the stove on. He would never have left the door open. That man got shit _done_. Gets.” He dropped his gaze to the knot in the table that sat just inches from his hand. “He gets shit done.”

Hill raised an eyebrow, but all she said was, “Type A kind of person?”

“Yeah.”

Behind her, Officer Nicholas Fury turned around from where he’d been studying the porcelain plates hanging on the wall by the cabinets. Even in his state of general panic, Thor couldn’t help thinking that Officer Fury lived up to his name. He wondered for a moment how he’d lost the eye, then figured he probably didn’t want to know.

“Nice china,” Fury growled. 

“It’s -- um -- it’s my mom’s,” Thor mumbled. “Old Country Roses. They’re both obsessed.”

“I understand it’s your birthday today.”

Thor opened his mouth to reply and then halted. He’d forgotten amid the frenzy of activity. 

“Yeah.”

“Pretty awful timing for a disappearance,” Hill observed.

“Yeah, well,” Thor muttered. “This is unlike him, too. By now, we’d be out on the --”

“Scavenger hunt,” Hill finished. “There was a magazine talking about it a day or two ago.”

“Yeah.” 

“You two must be close.”

“Yeah. Yeah, we are.”

_I know what his dick tastes like, if that’s what you mean._

“Now, we understand that you’re upset, Mr. Odinson,” Hill said, “but it _is_ vital that we account for your movements today. Not because we suspect you. This is routine.”

Thor swallowed. “I understand.”

“Let’s start with this morning. Say -- seven o’clock.” Hill turned to a fresh page in her notepad, pen poised.

For one wild expanse of three seconds, Thor envisioned his future if he told the truth: _Jesus Christ, you did_ WHAT _,_ the salacious details winding up in every tabloid and scandal sheet on the east coast, family shunned in the street, _hey, Odinson, which one’s Cersei and which one’s Jaime,_ he needed to stop.

“I had a late morning,” he said. “Stayed in my apartment, did some editing.” He tried a smile. “Got a novel to publish, after all.” This revelation was received without comment. 

“Anyone who can corroborate that?” Fury asked, his one visible eye flashing.

“Um, I’m afraid not.”

“And after that?” Hill prompted.

“Um --” Thor swallowed -- “I had lunch with a friend at her apartment. Then I came back to mine to freshen up and headed over here.” He forced another smile. “He always insisted on coming with me. I’m hopeless at this stuff.” _Insists,_ he told himself sternly. _Why do you keep using past tense?_

“What the friend’s name?”

“Jane Foster.” And lo, there went all hope of keeping her from the wolf pack…

“Do you think you could call your brother’s cell for us?” asked Fury. “Just in case.”

Thor opened his mouth to reply, but at that moment, a young police officer knocked on the open kitchen door and stepped inside.

“Sorry,” he said, “did you just say something about a cell phone?” 

In one white latex-gloved hand, the kid held a mangled iPhone. The screen was smashed to bits. Thor leaned back heavily in his chair. 

“That his?” asked Fury. 

“Yeah.” Thor nodded. He felt as though he were about to be sick. “Yeah, that was his.”

It was jarring, seeing the phone destroyed like that -- almost as bad as seeing Loki’s battered corpse would have been. He’d never gone anywhere without the damn thing. Thor had joked once that Loki probably had his entire novel saved on it, but then Loki had casually wiped his mouth with his napkin and said that, no, it was a safety precaution, ‘cause God only knew what a burglar would find on it if they broke in? Thor’s stomach did a little flip-flop of relief in spite of his anxiety; no chance of the police going through incriminating voicemails. It wouldn’t necessarily be in character for Loki to save them, but Thor would still prefer there to be no chance at all that the police could discover any vocal recording of him telling Loki about his massive, raging --

Hill’s voice cut through his internal monologue. “Thanks, Parker.”

Hill and Fury exchanged glances. Thor got the impression that they were having an entire conversation with their eyes, complete with inflection and profanity. Then Hill turned back to him.

“It’s a little early to categorize this as a missing persons case, but I think there’s little doubt that that’s what this is,” she said. “If you wouldn’t mind accompanying us to the station for some follow-up questions?”

“Um -- yeah, yeah, of course,” said Thor. He passed a hand over his nose and mouth, fighting the queasy feelings in his stomach, and then stood. There was a cough from the doorway. The kid cop, Parker, was still standing in the doorway. 

“Yeah?” Fury put his hands behind his back. 

“Um… we found something else…?” Parker proffered a bright red envelope. The words _CLUE #1_ were written across the front in a familiar, ornate scrawl. 

“Well.” Fury’s tone was dry. “I think that’s the first time any kidnapper has been so helpful.”

Thor finally made his voice work. “No -- no, that’s a -- that’s the first clue for the scavenger hunt.”

“We gathered,” Hill said. To Parker, she added, “Did you find any more of these?”

The kid shook his head. “No, this was the only one so far.”

“Keep checking,” she said. 

“Could I --” Thor swallowed -- “could I at least read it?”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea right now, Mr. Odinson,” she said. “If you could --”

“But that’s -- I mean, fuck, it’s for me --”

“Mr. Odinson, have you called your parents yet?” 

Thor blinked at her. “I… no, no, I don’t think I have…”

“Well, Jesus, don’t you think you ought to? The first forty-eight hours are the most crucial. You might as well let them know their son is missing.”

Apparently, press conferences were something you did when public figures went missing. All Thor could think about as he stood there beside Odin and Frigga (who had their hands around each other’s waists, dry-eyed but red-eyed) was how much Loki would have _hated_ this. He was notoriously camera shy. Most photos of them at events showed Thor front and center, with Loki hanging behind, eyes downcast. In private was where he came alive.

Christ, he missed him. It had been just over a day since he’d discovered that Loki was gone, and already he felt as though a rat were gnawing its way through his stomach. His brain seemed to be running on autopilot: where is he? where is he? where is he? where is he? where…

A pretty blonde reporter who introduced herself as Christine Everhart wanted to know what they’d like to tell Loki, if he’s watching right now. 

Odin and Frigga glanced at each other, and then Frigga spoke. 

“We’d like him to know that we love him,” she said, her voice a little hoarse, “and that we know we’re going to find him and bring him home.”

Christine Everhart looked over at Thor. “Thor, anything you’d like to add?” she asked, pen poised, the photographer she’d brought along snapping a quick photo behind her.

Thor considered saying something along the lines of _don’t do anything stupid, forthe love of God,_ because that’s what Loki would really need to hear. It would be just like him to mouth off and get himself killed by whoever was holding him, assuming that was the case. 

But he just pressed his lips together and shook his head.

“They said it all,” he mumbled.

After the snowfall of questions had ended and the press had dispersed, Thor followed his parents to where Fury and Hill were waiting on the side.

“Is there any news?” asked Odin, not beating about the bush.

“We think we may have a lead or two,” said Hill. “His apartment isn’t too far fromone of the uglier parts of town. It’s possible that some people may have broken in, might be holding out for a ransom.” 

Thor covered his mouth with the backs of his fingers.

“We’re going out there tonight to check around,” said Fury. “See if there’s anything we can pick up. There’s one character, guy named Malekith. This seems like his style.”

“Can I join you on that?” asked Thor.

Hill exchanged another one of those loaded glances with Fury. “I don’t think that’s wise,” she said. “But something you _can_ do is do that scavenger hunt for us.”

Thor couldn’t help being a little snide. “Oh, so you’ve decided I’m allowed to, now?”

“Thor, please.” Frigga put a hand on his shoulder.

“It might give us some indication of his movements,” Fury said. “Clue One was the only one we found, so we can assume that he had time to set everything else up.”

“If you can come with us right now,” Hill said, “we can get going immediately.”

Thor opened his mouth to reply, but at the moment, a voice came in from across the room:

“Thor?”

To his simultaneous horror and relief, Jane was hurrying over.

“Hi,” he said, “I didn’t realize you were here.”

“I texted you.”

“Sorry, my phone’s dead.” Remembering Odin and Frigga, he turned to his parents. “Um, Jane, these are my parents.”

They shook hands. “Pleased to meet you,” Jane said. “Jane Foster.”

“Friend of mine,” Thor supplied.

“A pleasure,” Frigga said. Odin nodded. 

Jane gave them the brainiac girlfriend smile that she was so good at and made the obligatory conversation ( _I’m so sorry, is there anything I can do, you must be going through so much)_ and Thor found himself wanting to push the hordes of people aside, Jane and his parents included, and scream that they weren’t enough, goddammit! His baby brother was missing; didn’t they understand how vital it was that they find them? How could they just stand there? His baby brother, his lover, the closest thing he’d ever had to a goddamned soul mate. Find him. He had to find him and never let him out of his sight or his grasp again.

Hill met him outside the police station and gave him a look, one eyebrow raised.

“You ready?

Thor nodded. Frigga and Odin weren’t with him. He’d made up some feeble excuse as to why he wanted to do this alone, and somehow they had bought it. Thank God. If Loki had sneaked anything especially risqué into the clues, he didn’t want his parents there, reading over his shoulder. 

The police were bad enough.

Hill handed him the envelope marked _Clue #1_ that he recognized from the apartment. He opened it and was immediately greeted by Loki’s handwriting -- which was strangely moving. He wrote his manuscripts longhand, Thor remembered. Ink stains on those long fingers. 

In messy, almost absurdly tiny cursive, the note read:

_#1_

_Happy birthday to you,_

_and congrats on advancing_

_to a year past twenty-two!_

_Behind a place where couples went dancing_

_is where you’ll discover your first clue._

_Sweet snow and cold romancing,_

_and a hell of a lot to do --_

_You’ve taught me so much about acting and planning --_

_perhaps now I’ll teach_ _you_ _a thing or two._

It was poetry characteristic of Loki, with a fairly simple rhyme scheme and no real meter. He remembered all too well a scene from Loki’s adolescence in which he’d attempted a sestina; it had ended with a lot of torn paper and Loki locking himself in his room, insisting that he wasn’t going to eat until he finished the damn thing. He did eventually succeed -- after many tears and a starvation diet. Frigga framed it and hung it on the wall. 

“Any ideas?” asked Hill.

Thor jerked himself back to earth and scanned over the poem once again. It hit him all at once. 

“Got it,” he said.

 

The alley was exactly how he remembered it, even in the height of summer: an unremarkable gap between the back of a baking supply store and what had been the back entrance of a dance club back in the Forties. Thor ran a hand over the brick wall and licked his lips.

“We’d hang out here sometimes,” he said for the benefit of Hill, who was leaned against the side of the car with her arms crossed. “One time, the store over here was restocking confectioner’s sugar. There was a truck and bags and bags of the stuff. One of the bags had burst, I guess, because the air was full of sugar. You could taste it. We were covered.”

_He was twenty, and Loki had just turned seventeen, back when Thor had no beard and Loki was still androgynous enough that people sometimes did double-takes when he spoke to them. The sun had nearly set, their shadows long and unnatural in the red evening, and the air glittered like frost, was sweet as ice cream. There was a dusting of sugar on Loki’s cheek; Thor wiped it off with his index finger and resisted the urge to suck on it. But his brother leaned in and kissed him. Sugar. Hands numb with cold, stuffed in jacket pockets._

_“I love you,” Thor whispered and tried to pretend that the slipping sensation in his stomach was butterflies, not shame. Loki nodded, almost more to himself than to Thor, then tilted his face even closer and dragged his tongue along the smooth, sugar-dusted line of his jaw._

_It was just like him, to respond to a confession like that with something so graceless and animalistic, and yet so symbolic. He knew. His brother knew everything. ‘_ You’re divine’ / ‘You are mine…’ 

“See the next clue anywhere?” asked Hill. Thor started to shake his head, but then his eye alighted on a loose space in the mortar of the old club where part of a brick had once been. Something was tucked inside… He pulled the envelope free. Sure enough, in the same tiny cursive:  _Clue #2_

Inside, there was a single sheet of paper.

_Thor,_

_I know things have been rough with us. I know that everything feels like it’s gone to shit. But let me tell you something: nothing has changed for me. You will always be my brother, I’m always going to love you, and I’m always going to be grateful for your patience. You are so gentle with me. That’s something I admire about you and something I wish I could learn, for both myself and other people. Thanks for putting up with me all these years._

_Lo_

Beneath that was the next poem. But Thor needed a second.

Was this what Loki had been turning over in his mind all this time? When he was throwing him against walls and snapping at him and being generally the worst possible brother-lover he could be, was this what Loki had been thinking about? 

He didn’t deserve this kind of praise. The guilt was hot in his belly.

 

In Hill’s car, he read the second clue.

_#2_

_Congrats again, baby, you’re on a roll,_

_but brace yourself -- this one might give you pause._

_Go to the place where_ maman se rend folle

_during the cool months as she prays for applause._

_Remember the day we spent, playing and filling up bowls --_

_just be careful when Kitty gets out his claws._

He didn’t need much thought about it.

“He’s taking it easy on me this time,” he remarked to Hill as they drove downtown, per his instructions. “He’s got the memory of an elephant and for some reason, he thinks I do, too.”

Hill made a noncommittal sound. Then Thor held up his hand.

“Here.”

They’d stopped at an apartment building: classical design, white stone and red brick.

“It’s Mom’s,” he explained to Hill as they climbed the stairs. “She comes here for a few weeks every time she finishes a novel and sends it to her editor. Helps with her anxiety. That’s where Loki gets it from,” he added. “He was a wreck after he sent his draft to his people. Never said anything, but if you looked closely, you could see his hand shaking. He’s supposed to take meds for it, but I don’t think --” He broke off abruptly as they reached the door to Frigga’s apartment. He fumbled with his key and the lock.

Inside, it was pure Frigga: nouveau Victorian, overstuffed furniture, a layer of dust over everything. It hadn’t been lived in four months, but everything still carried a faint scent of tuberose, the perfume she usually wore. Large windows with flowered curtains let in the light. Thor thought of Loki’s curtains, ripped from their fixtures. 

“Nice place,” said Hill.

“Yeah. We always tell her she should take up interior decorating as a hobby.”

Hill consulted Clue #2. “What does the bit about bowls and kitty mean?” There didn’t seem to be any suspicion in her voice, but then again, there wasn’t much danger in a bee either. And yet it stung you just the same…

“Loki and I were airing the place out one winter,” he said, “and we found this cat just sitting in the middle of the den --” he pointed -- “right there. We couldn’t figure out how it got in, but it sank its claws in my arm, no trouble. We left it some food and water, but it was gone the next time Mom came to stay.”

_“This is_ such _a bad idea…”_

_“I know, that’s why --_ ah -- _we’re doing this in the -- bathroom --”_

_Loki’s manner of dress was not usually conducive to quick fucks -- there was just so many layers to get through -- but Thor was finding that there were certain advantages, most notable being, of course, the tie. Smooth silk in his hand, the heel of which he pressed against the bathroom wall, forcing Loki’s head upwards as his body slammed against the wall in response to his thrusts. For all Thor knew, he was strangling him, but if he always looked like this without air, maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing. He was like a painting, with his shirt unbuttoned, chest flushed, that mile-long neck, and his trousers and underwear around one ankle, a whore of eighteen._

_“What is it? Why did you stop?” His voice was hoarse. He definitely couldn’t get enough air, but Thor didn’t loosen his grasp on the tie._

_“Just taking in the scenery.”_

_“Didn’t drag you in here for that.” Loki grabbed his arse, and Thor thrust forward especially sharply, eliciting a moan that sounded like a sob._

_“If I fuck you, can you quit talking?” he hissed in his ear, pulling the tie further up. It wrenched Loki’s chin upwards, but he still grinned and somehow managed to get the words out._

_“Depends on how well you do it, babe.”_

Frigga had remarked on the scratches on Thor’s upper arms when they came home. While Thor’s heart fought to start working again, Loki was already spinning the web.

_“Mom, you wouldn’t believe this, but there was this cat just_ sitting _there in the apartment, waiting for us. Thor tried to pick him up, but he clawed him. I_ know _, I don’t know how he got in there either.”_

_“You left food for him, didn’t you?”_

_“Yeah, we ran out and bought some stuff,” said Thor, eager to contribute._

_“Left it in the bathroom,” said Loki without a trace of irony. Then he shot a glance at Thor. “Mouthy thing wouldn’t shut up.”_

Hill was searching the living room.

“I don’t see any note,” she said.

“I bet I know,” said Thor. 

 

It was under the soap dish in the bathroom. Fighting both a groan at his brother’s sense of humor and also the urge to look at the expanse of blank wall behind the door, he opened the candy red envelope. 

_Dear Thor,_

_I wish we could go back sometimes. Hit rewind and undo some of those things we’ve said_ _and done._ _But then I realize that that would be pointless. No matter what we did, I believe that we’d end up the same way: here, where we are now. It all would have come out the same in the end._

_You’re so_ _confident_ _it makes me sick sometimes, you know? Everything you do, you either do it as if you’ve never heard the definition of failure, or as if you’ve made a deal with yourself that you won’t fail. You hold yourself to a higher standard. You’re a force of nature. I know you won’t give up on me._

_Lo_

Hill’s cell phone rang, jarring Thor out of his reverie. _‘Sorry,'_ she mouthed and went to answer it in the hallway. Willing himself not to break down in his mother’s bathroom, he pressed on to be done with it.

_Clue #3_

_We’re nearly at the end; I hope you’ve enjoyed the game._

_But every rose has its thorn, and I think ours is this --_

_after school, you’d run here to escape your storm cloud fame,_

_while I panicked and worried that there’s no one who’d miss_

_me if I vanished for good -- yet I stayed all the same._

_So you see it’s all over, and no one cares who we kiss,_

_but the ache is still sharp, dear, and we both know our blame._

It was the third clue, and therefore the last one, but Thor had reached a dead end. Loki, it seemed, had suddenly decided to stop taking it easy on him, much in the same way that he’d suddenly lost the teasing tone that Thor both hated and adored. There was something broken coming through the words. Broken and bitter. But Thor couldn't for the life of him figure out what the answer might be, to the riddle or his brother.

Hill reappeared in the doorway, her face a careful blank. A stone dropped in Thor’s stomach.

“What’s going on?” he asked in trepidation.

“That was Forensics,” she said. “They’re saying that they’ve found something.”

Thor’s hand curled around the clue, crumpling it. “Okay.”

She took a breath. “The kitchen floor in his apartment has traces of blood on it. A lot of blood. It looks like it was cleaned up pretty sloppily.”

It took several moments for him to take her meaning. He thought of the afternoon he had spent with the police in Loki’s kitchen. He thought of the mess in the living room. His brother’s broken phone. Frigga’s red eyes.

His gorge rose.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm on tumblr @williamshakennotstirred if you want to drop in and say hi!
> 
> Comments are the best.


	6. Diary, Part Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Weep not for what was lost, but for what could have been, type of thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short one this time, but know that plenty will be happening in the next chapter. Also, if you recognize the reference to one of Gillian Flynn's other books at the end, you're awesome :P

_I finalized the bullshit today_ [Loki wrote].  _Every year, I spend about thirty dollars on him. Good paper, good pens, the customary red envelopes -- check, check, check. And then, of course, the gift. He’ll like this one._

_I feel not unlike a girlfriend entering the desperate, edge-of-cliff stage of her relationship. Writing adoring, tender notes to placate him, buying nice things to keep him happy (we went for ice cream yesterday and it was almost good), feels like the most sordid sort of manipulation, both of him and myself. Had I a uterus, I’d probably be pushing for a baby about now. It’s important that I keep him happy. Happy Thor isn’t so frightening. Like an 1800s mistress, I can use my sexual wiles and keep some semblance of control. Laudanum for his anger._

[A large mouthful of white wine]

_He accuses me of moodiness sometimes. Which is hilarious, I know. Loki is moody, Loki is fickle, Loki is whatever it says on the di today._

_“What are you thinking, Loki?”_

_I hear that one a lot. He says he can’t read me, accuses me of being depressed._

_“What do you expect, Thor? What do you expect?”_

_Can I just get this off my chest? I fucking hate writing poetry. This kind, at least. ABAB just doesn’t seem right, somehow. If this were a proper relationship on any level, of any sort, I’d write him a sonnet or a villanelle for each clue. Shit, even a fucking limerick has more class than this drivel. I don’t know, I’ve just always felt more accomplished with my prose. I always tell Mom every year that she needs to burn that damn sestina._

[stub out the cigarette in the ashtray; closed eyes; opened them]

_This year, the poems have a darker tone than usual. Didn’t mean for it to come out that way, honestly, but it did, and I don’t have the time, inclination, or energy to write new ones. Everything is coded -- it has to be, Mom and Dad always want to read them afterwards -- but he knows what the real meaning is._

_The first clue is a reference to the powdered sugar blizzard and the one time I’ve ever initiated anything between us. It’s difficult sometimes, to find the lines between what I want and what I don’t. I don’t always know what’s real. What’s in my head and my heart and my glands_ [realized he was unconsciously grinding the cigarette end against the glass tray and let go; curled his hand into a fist]. _Because at times he’s so genuinely gentle and hilarious… Fuck, I don’t know. I remember this one time, we went to visit some friends of ours that had just had a new baby, and the damn thing was absolutely_ disgusting _, we’re talking real Hurricane Gerber here, and he -- you know who -- just leans over and whispers in my ear,_ that’s what I’m wearing tonight. _I just about pissed myself trying to choke back the laugh._

_Fucking hell, listen to me. I really don’t deserve to be saved, do I? Whatever happens, I’ll have, in some way, allowed it. I wish I could scrub this out._

_Anyroad, Clue #2: darker this time. Sorry, Mom, but it wasn’t a_ cat _that scratched Thor. He was hurting me; I drew blood. And then I nipped ‘round the next morning to put cat food and water in the bathroom and make sure that we’d covered our tracks. The only thing that would be worse than getting killed would be getting caught by you and Dad._

_Clue #3 is a final fuck you. Because he’s to blame for everything. That bastard, this is what he’s made me into. These mind games he plays._ I want you, don’t look at me. Why can’t you look at me? Never speak to me again. _I am hollow and expressionless these days. That’s what’s safe. If I move, it’s a betrayal. Even the tone of my voice is weaponized._

_I need to get my manuscript and the rest of my affairs in order. Sooner rather than later. I like to think that if the worst happens and they have to publish_ Lenore _posthumously, at least the literary analysts can have fun dissecting my prose for all the hidden autobiographical messages I must have put in there. I’ll be immortalized as one of those lost literary greats. Weep not for what was lost, but for what could have been, type of thing. They’ll mourn my genius for years -- assuming I’m any good._

_I need to finish_ The Bell Jar. _Sorry, Sylvia. Looks like I left it too long._

_I think this might be the last I write for this. Tuck it into the left-hand drawer of my desk and leave it there. A contingency plan. You can’t exist without a plan, and several backup plans. Contingency for the contingency._

[lit another cigarette]

_“Smile at least, for God’s sake.”_

_“I feel like I’m going to a funeral.”_

_“Stop crying.”_

_“What are you thinking, Loki?”_

_What am I thinking? Good question. I can’t figure out if this -- these papers -- are meant to be justice or revenge and retribution._

_These days, I’m leaning towards justice._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, comments make me sing!


	7. Gone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thor was having the creeping, inexplicable feeling that the noose was beginning to tighten.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter-specific warnings this time include some discussions of suicide, blood, and physical assault.

>  "My mother had always told her kids: if you're about to do something, and you want to know if it's a bad idea, imagine seeing it printed in the paper for all the world to see." - Gillian Flynn,  _Gone Girl_

After that, like a set of dominoes, the bad news just kept on coming. It was as if the floodgates had broken at last. Late that day, Forensics confirmed that there was a definite blood trail on the kitchen floor and that it looked as though something heavy had been dragged through it over to the edge of the linoleum, where the carpet started. Two small spots of blood had been found in the carpet itself, faded, as though the assailant had tried to clean up and only partially succeeded. They’d also discovered several hairs amid what was left of the stains that were a good match for what they found in Loki’s brush. And, at three-twenty in the morning several days later, Thor was woken by a call from Frigga, saying that Fury had called with the news that _a street investigation had yielded no results, but that they had several testimonials from those who claimed to have seen Loki there several weeks before._

“Well, what the hell is that supposed to mean?” he’d asked. Beside him, Jane lifted her head and pushed the hair out of her eyes. 

_“I don’t know, Thor,”_ said Frigga, _“but Fury said they wanted to get follow-up statements from those people. I’m sure we’ll have more news in a few hours.”_ She hung up. Thor replaced his phone on the nightstand.

“Any luck?” asked Jane. He shook his head. 

“We’ll know more by tomorrow. Don’t worry about it,” he added and kissed her, smiling in relief as Jane lay back down against the pillows. Thin arms wrapping around her back. She was so uncomplicated -- no, that wasn’t fair to her. Jane was multifaceted, an intelligent woman with a great deal of depth. He _knew_ that. But when compared to Loki, she was a walk in the park. No drama, no fuss. She didn’t expect too much from him. One questing hand found the condom pack on the nightstand. Another kiss.

Maria Hill had called him with follow-up questions earlier. His heart had nearly stopped when she asked, _“Did Loki have a girlfriend or boyfriend or...?”_

_“Not that I’m aware,”_ he’d said as casually as he could muster. _“Why do you ask?”_

_“There are small traces of semen on the bedclothes and in the laundry we found in the washing machine,”_ Hill replied, blissfully unaware that Thor’s vision had just fuzzed out momentarily from sheer panic. _“Not enough to analyze, though. And he seems to have taken the trash out before he disappeared; we didn’t find any condoms anywhere. We did find a couple things in the bedside table that suggest he was fairly active, but no real fingerprints.”_ Thor breathed out a silent sigh of relief and mouthed a thank-you toward heaven. _“Did he mention planning to meet anyone the morning he disappeared?”_

_“Not that I’m aware.”_

_“The neighbors reported raised voices, like an argument.”_

_“If he did meet someone, he didn’t say anything to me.”_ He thought back to the morning of his birthday, and the fight that they’d had. They were always careful about entering and exiting -- Loki was something of a mastermind and was forever organizing new ways of smuggling Thor into his room undetected. Still, it was too much to hope that someone wasn’t at least aware, however vaguely, that Thor was out of his apartment during the time in question, and that Loki had had an overnight visitor… 

“Jesus, Thor --” Jane, clenching his shoulders -- “it’s not a race!”

“Sorry.”

Loneliness was another thing he was trying to overcome, in addition to his growing panic and unease. As horrible and shallow as it was, he was missing Loki badly. Not for his conversation. The man fucked like -- well -- a pro. They’d had more than enough time to get comfortable with each other. With Jane, well --

She wasn’t Loki. Pure and simple. Harsh, cold, and yet absolutely true and unavoidable.

His orgasm was quick and unremarkable; he pulled out and crawled further beneath the bedcovers to bring his mouth between her thighs. Above him, he heard her sigh.

The final clue from the scavenger hunt was taunting him where it sat on his nightstand, lurid in its red envelope. In his more inane moments, he imagined it singing to him: _don’t you forget about me…_ What was Loki trying to say? What idiot shard of their fucked-up past was he supposed to remember? The absurd rhymes danced before his eyes when he slept, but no amount of turning the problem over in his mind would solve it. He was well and truly stumped.

The press, of course, had descended on the story like vultures on a particularly succulent bit of carrion. He couldn’t turn on the television or glance at his phone but some Botoxed person with a pasted-on, cream cheese smile would be shouting the details of his brother’s disappearance to the world at large (why, oh why, did daytime TV presents insist on shouting all their news? Sheer volume does not an interesting show make). A vigil was being organized for him. Thor would probably have to go, but he didn’t know, the sight of hundreds of people holding candles, flashlights, their phones, anything, all gathered in solidarity, would make the reason they were there all too real. And Loki would hate the idea if he knew of it. And what good was a vigil supposed to do, anyway? It wouldn’t bring him back.

He _needed_ him back.

Jane came with a little exhale, legs jerking where they rested on his shoulders. When Thor had tossed the condom and wiped off his face, she was still lying there, thighs apart, with a solemn expression on her face. 

“Jane?” He kissed her, but the lack of response on her part was a little chilling. He wondered if it was possible that she could sense something from him, something not quite right. She pulled back and pushed off the covers. 

“Probably should be getting back,” she said. “I’m making an early start tomorrow.”

“I can drive you,” Thor offered. But she just waved a hand and bent down to pick up her clothes. 

“I’ll get a taxi.”

He stood up. She was pulling on her T-shirt (double-helix, “Checks itself before it wrecks itself”) and once she’d tugged it down, she immediately started on her sweatpants. “Is everything okay?” he asked, making to lay a hand on her shoulder, but she bypassed it to go the mirror and smooth her hair back. He couldn’t tell if it was intentional or not. “I mean, is there anything you’d like to talk about?”

She shook her head, giving him a smile that seemed forced in the mirror. “I’m good. Just want to get home and get some actual shut-eye, you know?”

She kissed him briefly and left the apartment. There was something in her eyes, Thor thought, that suggested that she was trying her damnedest to help him, but knew that his heart just wasn’t in it. 

He changed his sheets immediately -- force of habit -- and then fell asleep in front of his laptop, trying and failing to work up the moxie to work. When he dreamed, it was of Loki lying naked in his arms and whispering the words to the final clue, his hair soaking wet and staining his pillow a dark, terrible red.

 

Fury called a day later as Thor was pouring over his old yearbooks (something, anything, to see that stupid fucking face again) and announced that they’d learned a few things. 

_“According to Malekith,”_ he said, _“your brother was seen attempting to buy a gun from an unlicensed dealer in Malekith’s network._ ”

Thor stood and began to pace. “What?” 

_“Apparently he got pretty upset when he couldn’t get what he wanted. Started crying. Said that he was desperate. That’s according to Malekith.”_

“Why would my brother want a gun? Like, if you knew him, you’d know that he’d be the last person to --” _  
“Presumably, he wanted one so he could fire it at someone or something,”_ Fury said dryly. _“Did he ever talk to you about any threats he may have gotten? Did he seem worried, or more agitated than usual?”_

“Loki was always agitated,” Thor said.

_“But anything out of the ordinary,”_ Fury persisted. _“Any --”_

“No,” he interrupted. “He never mentioned anything like that.”

_“All right.”_ There was a susurrus over the line, like Fury was shuffling his papers. _“If you don’t mind, Mr. Odinson, I’d like to ask some follow-up questions regarding your statement, since I’ve got you here on the line.”_

“Okay.” Thor swallowed and tried to pretend that his heart rate hadn’t just leaped to twice its normal speed.

_“You said that you spent the morning in your apartment, working on your novel, is that correct?”_

“Yessir.”

_“And you spent the entire morning alone?”_

Thor swallowed again and hoped that the phone wouldn’t pick up any stray sound. “That’s right.” _So I have no real alibi -- what am I thinking, I didn’t do_ anything _to him. I’m not guilty. I am not. Guilty._

_But,_ a voice that sounded uncomfortably like Loki’s reminded him, _there’s no way they can prove that if you don’t tell the truth. Not really._

He’d really screwed himself, hadn’t he? 

This was all still conjecture, he reminded himself. There was no reason to think that they suspected him. He was innocent. The truth will out. 

_“Your parents mentioned to me that it seemed as though you two may have argued recently,”_ Fury was saying. _“Do you have anything to say about that?”_

_Jeez, thanks for throwing me under the bus._ “We were stressed, with our novels and everything. But nothing really happened.”

_“All right, thank you, Mr. Odinson.”_

“You don’t --” The words _you don’t really suspect me, do you_ lined themselves up perfectly in his head, but in the end what came out was: “You don’t really think he’s dead, do you?”

There was a long, terrible silence, broken only by the hissing of the phone line. 

_“There’s just no way of telling, Mr. Odinson,”_ Fury said at last. _“But the fact remains… that was a lot of blood they found. I would prepare myself if I were you.”_ He didn’t give him time to let it sink in, moving right on to, _“By the way, Maria Hill wanted to know if you’ve solved that clue yet.”_

 

Then, for the stretch of three interminable days, nothing. Thor tried and failed to work on his novel, tried and failed to ignore the constant sound bytes on his life coming in across all the channels, tried and failed to ignore how his parents seemed to be aging more in two weeks than they had in twenty years.

And Loki… was gone.

There was no other word for it. Thor felt as though the Rapture had come and, against all probability, picked up only his brother. He kept turning corners and expecting to find him there, arms crossed, or laughing at something he’d found on the internet (laughing. How long had it been since he’d heard him do _that_ ), or tucked in Thor’s armchair, legs pulled to his chest, book in hand, hair wet from his shower. Twice, Thor had woken with a start, convinced that he’d heard his brother’s voice in the hall. But, of course, that was wishful thinking. A dream. 

Or a nightmare. He’d take either.

He’d simply vanished. And more and more, Thor was having the creeping, inexplicable feeling that the noose was beginning to tighten. There had been no further word from the police, but as he went over all the conversations he’d had with them, he felt increasingly convinced that they’d been gauging his reaction to everything they’d told him. He’d lied too much -- that was it. Things about his story weren’t adding up.

A week passed by, then two. 

Old friends started crawling out of the woodwork. Fandral called several times to offer his condolences, really, he couldn’t imagine what Thor and his parents must be going through, and was there anything he could do, anything at all? Thor thanked him and politely declined. And Sif, an old ex-girlfriend-yet-still-friend from high school, had somehow wrestled a moment out of her hectic life as Marine-in-training to come down and visit him. They’d spent a good afternoon in his apartment, watching _M*A*S*H_ reruns and whipping up a casserole that smelled freaking amazing, even though it set off the fire alarm. They didn’t talk much.

By the beginning of Week Three, he was starting to spend more time with his parents, _sans_ request. The longer Loki was away, the more Thor felt the desire to make up for both his absence and their at-best spotty efforts as sons. He came over for dinner in the evenings, and they would talk about their respective novels or things that had happened during the day. The empty chair across from Thor’s was never discussed, although, during lulls, he would see either Odin or Frigga’s eyes flick sadly towards it. And then it would be his cue to squeeze their hand and turn the conversation again. Once or twice, he brought Jane over. It was at once heartening and dispiriting to see Frigga, in particular, welcome her with open arms, bring her to Loki’s chair, and say things like, _you ought to eat more, honey, you’re like a clothesline!_ Loki had been the baby, and now that he was gone, she needed someone to fill the gap.

Thor tried not to resent the fact that she hadn’t turned that instinct onto him.

But they were still warm to him -- of course they were. Far warmer and more loving than he deserved. One evening, when he’d stayed particularly late and Frigga had already gone to bed -- tired smile, worn-out like a shirt laundered once too many times -- he let his feelings get the better of him, and Odin had had to calm him down. Arms wrapped around him, rocking him back in forth in front of the _Peter Whimsy_ mystery thatstill flickered unheeded on the TV, _“it’s all right, son, I’m right here, you just let it out.”_

_Don’t you understand?_ he thought. _If this goes wrong, you’ll never love me again. You’ll never_ want _to be there again._

Jane was warming up to him again, at least: spending the night, laughing at his jokes, helping him with revisions. But sometimes, he still caught her looking at him with that uncertainty. _You know,_ he thought to himself, more times than he cared to count. _You know that I’m lying, but you don’t know what I’m lying about._

And finally, late one night, at long last, it hit him. 

 

“Oh my god!” He sat bolt-upright in bed, startling Jane, who had been half-asleep beside him. “The library, _that’s_ what he means!”

He switched on the lamp on the bedside table and tore Clue #3 out of its envelope, rereading the verses.

_We’re nearly at the end; I hope you’ve enjoyed the game._

_But every rose has its thorn, and I think ours is this --_

_after school, you’d run here to escape your storm cloud fame,_

_while I panicked and worried that there’s no one who’d miss_

_me if I vanished for good -- yet I stayed all the same._

_So you see it’s all over, and no one cares who we kiss,_

_but the ache is still sharp, dear, and we both know our blame._

He nodded as he read. “Yes, I get it now!”

“What is it?” 

He handed Jane the note. She squinted down at it, skimming through its contents. “I couldn’t figure out what he meant, but I remember now!” he said excitedly. 

“Go for it.” She was sitting up now, leaning forward with real enthusiasm in her face, looking the way some people do when offered the prospect of a rant or a dish of gossip. “Tell me how smart you are.”

“It’s the library,” Thor explained. “You know, the one downtown?” Jane nodded. “I would hang out there with some of my friends after school back in high school, you know, just to be me and not Thor, son of Odin Borsson. I always said the name followed me around like a thunder cloud… remarkable he even remembered that…” He trailed off, realizing that he was in danger of saying too much. Jane pointed at the last few lines. 

“What about these? ‘ _While I panicked and worried that there’s no one who’d miss / me if I vanished for good -- yet I stayed all the same.’_ What does that mean?”

Thor tried to mellow the triumph in his voice, not wanting to give the wrong impression, as well as trying to edit out the more objectionable parts of the story before they came up.

“Around my senior year of high school, a lot of Loki’s depressive symptoms started showing up,” he said. “I don’t think he had a lot of friends. He started getting really lonely. Accused me of abandoning him. I let him come with us one day-- and it wasn’t like we were excluding him, he really could have come any time he wanted -- but… he got upset about something, I guess, and the next thing I know, he’s walking straight out of the library and…”

_Okay, he probably should have known better than to let him tag along on what was essentially a glorified group-date with Sif: with Sif because she was his girlfriend, and group-date because that’s what happened any time you hung out with Fandral. And please, it wasn’t as if Loki hadn’t known. But they were both high schoolers, and neither were great students of how other people’s feelings worked (and saying that the relationship was entirely Thor’s fault was a_ little _bit unfair. Sif had asked him out, not vice versa). But kissing his girlfriend felt too much like a violation when Loki was right fucking there, pretending to nose through Sir Walter Scott and pretending that Fandral wasn’t giving him the eye, as only Fandral could do it._

_He’d looked up to find both of them gone. A quick search found them behind a display of biographies, Zelda Fitzgerald and Nancy Reagan smirking down at them as Fandral backed Loki against the shelf. Kissing his mouth, a hand resting almost tenderly on his chest. Thor felt his blood boil. Sure, the age gap was no larger than between himself and Loki, but seeing his_ friend _there where_ he _should have been was too much. And Loki… he hadn’t realized just how much older than his age he could look..._

_It had taken Sif and Hogan to separate Thor from Fandral. And when again he looked up, Loki was weaving between the bookshelves, headed purposefully for the red_ EXIT _sign, not even bothering with his coat. Thor stumbled after him._

_He’d heard about the panic instinct, the science behind it: fight or flight, all that. Nobody had ever mentioned that third option, which was to stop stock-still like a dumbass and never move again, powerless to stop whatever comes next._

_From the top of the steps that led down to the sidewalk and onto the road he saw: Loki flying across the cement; Loki not looking back or pausing or anything as the cement dropped off into asphalt; Loki not heeding his calls or the desperate shout that came a second later; the black taxi that sped towards him, unable to brake in time._

_The impact made him travel several feet, depositing him partially on the sidewalk, mostly on the road. It was only then that Thor could rouse himself into action, run to his brother, and drag him out of danger._

_“Baby, baby, baby, open your eyes, come on, open your eyes for me --”_

_By the time Loki was given a clean bill of health and let out of the hospital, Thor had broken up with Sif (he was too distant, she said, off in la la land). The hospital had put Loki on Suicide Watch the minute they’d seen his medical history and all those psych evals._

_Not once, down the stretch of years afterward, could Thor ever tell if the hit had been an accident, or if his brother had purposefully flung himself into the taxi’s path._

_And Loki certainly wasn’t about to tell._

Jane sat there, chewing on the heavily-abridged version that he had given her. 

“So you’re going to go out to the library and see if you can find anything?”

He nodded. “What else can I do?”

And she gave him one of her smiles, sad and uncertain, yet disturbingly knowing. 

 

The night passed fitfully, with more dreams of Loki with blood in his hair, lying on the kitchen linoleum. _It’s okay,_ he whispered. _Don’t you think it’s better that I go away?_

And Thor sobbed and held him close.

 

The library hadn’t changed much. As Thor wandered through the shelves, he caught sight even of some of the same librarians, who had all seemed a little like ghosts in his younger years as they flitted from desk to desk, colorless and without much personality. 

And there it was. The table where he, Sif, and the others had crowded and pretended to study. Sif in her boyish trousers and Metallica T-shirts, dark hair swept up in a bun, tendrils framing her face. Looking back, Thor realized how similar she was to Loki. They even had many of the same mannerisms, like that mocking twist of the mouth when they laughed at your expense. But Sif’s eyes were kinder. Loki’s gaze was a dagger or a bouquet of flowers, depending on the day.

Thor went to the spot where he had always sat, Arthur at his own Round Table, and peered inside the cubby underneath. It was dark, but he thought he could make out the dim outline of something… 

He hauled out first the _Encyclopedia Brittanica_ , and then, _ta-da_ , a large gift wrapped in shiny red wrapping paper. The label was clear: _from L to T._ With a wary eye on the ghostly librarians that he could glimpse through the shelves, he carefully unwrapped the present, stuffing the crumpled paper back into the cubby.

It was books, five of them, stored front-cover-down. He flipped them over and read the titles: Nabokov’s _Lolita_ , V.C. Andrews’s _Flowers in the Attic,_ a Jeffrey Eugenides novel, Tartt’s _The Secret History,_ and some Phillippa Gregory novel called _Wideacre._ Thor stared down at them dumbly. It wasn’t necessary to know the plot of every single one to catch his brother’s point, such as it was.

There was a note with it, written on the good, creamy stationery that Loki had always favored.

_For my poor brother, who can’t stand to face the ugly side of art. Read and learn, grasshopper._

A shadow fell over the desk, and Thor looked up, startled. Fury was standing there, face entirely expressionless. Immediately, Thor swiped the letter into his pocket.

“Miss Foster said I might find you here,” he said.

Thor fought to make his tongue work. “Uh -- yeah,” he said, straightening upwards. “What can I do for you, sir?”

Fury twisted his neck to read the book titles. His eyebrows lifted, and Thor found himself tensing. “Light reading.”

Thor made an abrupt decision. “My brother always told me to not be afraid of the uglier parts of fiction,” he said. “Figure I might as well take his advice.” Fury grunted.

“Any breakthroughs on the birthday front?” he asked.

Thor shook his head, swallowing. “No idea. I thought it was here, but I guess I was wrong.”

“Yes, Miss Foster said she thought you had a hunch.”

“No dice.”

“No dice,” Fury repeated. “Look, if it’s no trouble to you, I’d like to take you down to your brother’s apartment one more time. Something I’d like to show you.” 

His stomach lurched at the thought of stepping back inside there. But he nodded. 

“I’m not busy.”

 

It had hardly changed. That was the surreal thing. Loki was constantly rearranging the furniture, never happy with how he utilized the space. Forever changing the arrangement of the ornaments, the color of the curtains, moving the armchairs around in a game of neverending Musical Chairs. But now the curtains lay still on the floor, the ottoman on its side. But the coffee table shards had been cleaned up, at least, along with those of the vase. He could hear people moving about down the hall, likely still scouring the apartment for stray clues. Thor followed Fury into the den and did his best to avoid the kitchen floor. Yellow crime scene tape was still stuck everywhere.

“What did you want to show me?” 

Fury jerked his head in a _come hither_ gesture where he stood in the center of the room.

“Nice place here,” he said.

“Yeah. He got the designer streak from Mom.” He cursed inwardly at the past-tense, but there was nothing for it now.

“Something bizarre I noticed the other day,” Fury said. He reached down and pulled the ottoman upright. “Watch carefully, now.”

“Okay.” 

Fury stamped on the floor. Hard. The foundations seemed to shake with it. One of the framed pictures on the shelf (high school graduation, Loki already out of his gown and into a suit, becomingly déshabille) toppled face-down. Fury looked up at him expectantly. “You see?”

“Hm?”

He pointed to the ottoman. “ _That_ didn’t move an inch,” he said. He prodded it with the toe of his shoe, scooting it backward. “It’ll slide around a little, but to fall on its side? _Hm._ ” He looked up at Thor again. “And yet when we reached the scene, that had fallen over and _that_ \--” a gesture at the fallen photograph -- “was perfectly okay. What do you make of that?”

Thor puffed out his cheeks, feeling unsure and singled-out. “Perhaps there was a fight? He grabbed at the ottoman and --”

“I’ll tell you what _I_ think happened. I think someone very much wants us to _think_ there was a fight in here.”

“But you’re not convinced.”

“No, I am not, Mr. Odinson. What I think,” Fury continued, settling down in the armchair and looking up at Thor, “is that someone attacked your brother, hurt him more than he expected, and then panicked to make it seem like a kidnapping.”

Thor swallowed against a suddenly very dry throat. “A kidnapping, as opposed to...?”

Fury gave him a grim smile. “You see why I called _you_ down here, as opposed to your parents.”

“So you think it might have been murder?”

Fury opened his mouth to respond but was interrupted by the kid who had found Loki’s phone the first day. Nervous eyes, glance at Thor, back to Fury. “Sir, there’s something I think you ought to see…”

Fury rose from the armchair. “Excuse me a moment.” He disappeared down the hall with the kid.

It was impossible to know which feeling to feel first: should he give way to the soul-sucking misery of knowing that his brother had almost certainly been taken from him irrevocably, or should he be panicking that the police seemed so bent on gauging his reaction to their findings? Should he be contacting his attorney? Or would that only further cinch his guilt? And why the _hell_ had he lied about the clue? If they caught him out -- and it would be so easy, any fool who knew to look for a barcode could tell those books weren’t part of the library, fuck, he had to go get them before it closed -- it would be another nail in the proverbial coffin. And Lo -- oh God, Lo… He could be a bastard, but it was hard to know who could have hated him enough to want him dead. To spill his blood all over that clean kitchen floor of which Loki was so exacting. So house-proud, always, like a housewife circa 1950 in some respects… 

He felt dizzy. Swallowing a mouthful of bile, Thor eased himself down onto the sofa and rubbed at his temples. He could feel a migraine coming on. 

And what a bastard _he’d_ been to him, the morning of. He remembered the argument, the rough handjob against the kitchen wall -- had he ever asked him if he’d wanted it? Ever? Had he misjudged this whole thing? The books swam up to the forefront of his memory again. Ugly stuff. Gut-churning and horrifying and yet somehow so thrilling. Was that how he’d looked at it all these years, Loki? Or was that what Thor had taught himself to look at it, to survive? Was either of them as blameless as he’d originally thought? 

A cough tore him from his thoughts. He looked up at Fury, whose customary poker face seemed a little more studied than usual. In one hand, he carried a bundle of papers.

“Thor Odinson?” he said. “I’d like you to accompany me down to the station.”


	8. Cool

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The problem with people who attempt murder or theft or kidnapping or any major crime is that they have no patience. They make careless, sloppy mistakes because they don’t want to wait. Not Loki.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! I'm so sorry for the wait, life happened, but I am BACK.

_Several weeks ago_

The plan had been to die, but as he drove out of the city and cranked up the air conditioning in his car, Loki was finding the prospect less and less appealing. 

Sure, it appealed to his instincts as artist — what this whole thing needed was a grand finale, a final flourish. It is, after all, impossible to have an ‘orrible murder without a body. To stick to the plan, a corpse was needed. 

And it was a _good_ plan; Loki was proud. He’d timed it all exactly. The problem with people who attempt murder or theft or kidnapping or any major crime is that they have no patience. They make careless, sloppy mistakes because they don’t want to wait. Not Loki. He had been riding the wave of his souring relationship with Thor for six looooooong months — just a tad longer than how long Thor had been running around with Alberta Einstein, interestingly — and all that while, through all those ugly fucks and uglier fights, he’d been planning. 

But first, to get the truth out of the way and separate it from the not-true and the might-as-well-be-true:

Fact: he loved Thor. Still did, as a matter of fact, even as he held down the accelerator and flew out of the city to leave him to his fate. There hadn’t been a time in his messed-up life when he hadn’t been in mad, head-over-heels, six-O _loooooove_ with him. _Lurve_. Even at his angriest, at Thor’s scariest, at their most deceptive and hateful moments, there was still that. 

But everyone reaches the point at which they can no longer tolerate their shitty living situation, and Loki’s had come nearly nine months ago. Thor had been wallowing in his pit of self-loathing and moral ambiguity…

… which was _fine_ , except that he’d expected Loki to go right along with it. Come on. Moral high-mindedness in an incestuous relationship will only get you so far, as far as Loki was concerned. Like dieting: you can do it if you want, but God help you if you expect your datemate to join in. And it wasn’t as though he didn’t know that Incest Is Bad. He got that. Really. It was just that he’d had the nimbleness of mind to accept it years ago. He could deal pretty damn well, thanks very much. And, all right, fine:

Fact: not everything in that damn-fool diary was fake. It _had_ felt sort of forced, the first few times. Going by the way Thor behaved, he probably had felt the same. 

But Loki was good now. At some point, he’d passed the point of giving a fuck, and since then, life had rolled more or less smoothly. And then there was Thor, gorgeous, sweet, _stupid_ Thor who couldn’t figure out how to make peace with himself.

He was craving a cigarette, but he didn’t want to take his hands off the wheel, do something stupid, and risk getting pulled over. That’d be awkward.

Thor had wanted him to stay the scared kid of his adolescence. He seemed to want their every encounter to be a replay of the night when Odin and Frigga had gone out to dinner, and Thor had come inside of him for the first time, and they’d cried about it together afterward. He wanted him to be as silent and frightened and full of self-loathing as he clearly was. It wasn’t him! It just wasn’t! 

He’d gone along with it for a while. Cooing and petting him when he got upset, giving him space, letting him get angry. _Go ahead, shit on me, I’m your brother and I have no right to complain_. But it wasn’t sustainable, that lie, and when Loki had stopped being the man Thor wanted and started being himself, everything began to unravel. It was quite chilling, really, when the person he loved most had seen him for who he really was and had absolutely despised him.

So what did they do to cure themselves of their respective ailments? Thor fucked a grad student (and good God, wasn’t that frustrating? Loki had longed, _longed_ for her to be some feline girl with C-cup breasts, a twelve-inch waist, and come-on-my-tits stilettos, but nope, astronomy and kittens and oversized cushy sweatshirts it was), and Loki plotted revenge.

Revenge, as it turned out, required a veryveryveryvery _very_ long, multilevel list. 

 

1\. Make sure he’s cheating.

  * Invite him to your flat. Whip up some tears and say you need him.
  * Do it good enough that he’ll be mellow and won’t ask too many questions when you
  * Implore him for a glass of water. Wait for him to leave, open his phone (password w0rthy), and speedread the texts awaiting. Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.
  * Compose your face into a haughty expression of desire and pretend that your heart wasn’t just smashed on the floor.



2\. Fucking do something about it.

 

Everything that followed was something worthy of one of those true crime novels (Loki couldn’t thank his dad _enough_ for his books. Treasure troves of pertinent information, all of them). What he had left was a trail that would be just enough for the police to arrest his brother on suspicion of kidnapping and murder. The diaries would be the final nail in the proverbial coffin. Go directly to jail, do not pass GO, do not collect 200 dollars. Ha ha ha, next time, cheat on someone who isn’t your brother. 

A neat two and a half miles outside the city, Loki parked outside a dingy-looking diner and slipped in behind a largish party to duck into the diner’s sad little bathroom. Wrinkling his nose against the stench of urinal cakes and despair, he took out a pair of scissors from his backpack, stuck his head under the tap, and then attacked his damp locks. He had to make quick work of it, in case someone came in and asked questions of the harried young man shedding black hair like a cat. 

It was remarkable how much a haircut could alter his face. He looked older, the A/C blowing against his newly-bared neck. As efficiently as he could, he scooped every trace of hair he could find into a plastic bag (belt and suspenders, take no chances) and strode out the door. No one batted an eyelash. 

Three long hours in the car that he’d borrowed (i.e: paid Malekith’s black market guy some good money in exchange for, in addition to his silence), and then he was pulling up to the place he’d marked out months ago: some ugly, nondescript motel within a boring suburban town. _Hideaway Hill._ L-O-L.

His room was draped blue and white. Mediocre bed, a TV, a tiny bathroom off the main part of the room. The window positioned above the roaring A/C granted him a lovely view of the chlorine-blued pool. He’d checked in as Loren Olson and gotten no look of recognition from the heavy-set man behind the desk. 

In the bathroom, he pulled all the items out of the goody bag he’d been steadily assembling over the past two months: a box of hair dye, several makeup compacts, a liner pencil, various sponges and brushes, a needle, rubbing alcohol, and a pair of proper scissors for cutting hair. In the diner bathroom, he’d mostly worked to lose the length. Now he tried to shape what was left as much as he could. The end result, close-cropped on the sides with an admirable attempt at a fauxhawk, was about as good as he could hope for. Three long and confused hours after that, his hair was a deep midnight purple. He stood shirtless in front of the mirror in the bathroom and admired how the color brought out the green of his eyes. Just because you were AWOL didn’t mean you couldn’t still be a dish.

Next came the really terrifying part, but Loki had printed off instructions before he left. The prick of the needle wasn’t too bad, once he’d numbed his eyebrow and his nose with ice from the little freezer-refrigerator. Once he’d put the studs in and the redness went down, he didn’t look too bad. Sort of like a masculine Lisbeth Salander. 

The internet had been right, it seemed: a haircut and piercings will change your face.

He spent the rest of afternoon practicing makeup, something he’d only had passing experience with in the past. Before he’d left, he’d looked up how-to’s on creating a more feminine face shape and tried to commit them to memory, but performing wasn’t quite the same thing as reading about it online. By six in the evening, he’d finally figured things out and felt comfortable enough to order pizza. He paid cash and ate on the floor of the apartment with the television going. Let’s see, terrible people buying wedding dresses, terrible people buying houses, terrible people decorating other people’s houses, the news — 

He stopped there, curious to see if his disappearance was being reported yet. Nothing now. Give it time. Once they found the bloodstains, they wouldn’t be able to get enough of him. And once they found the diary…

_Yikes_.

He switched off the TV, put the leftover pizza in the refrigerator, and stretched out on the bed. Thor was probably having a coronary right about now. It was a nice little thought. 

Inside the bathroom, after brushing his teeth, he picked up the final items in his goody bag. Sleeping pills. He took a shaky breath, cold with spearmint. 

The plan was to die. It wouldn’t really work if he didn’t. And it would be clean. Fill his pockets full of stones like Virginia Woolf, walk to the river, swallow the bottle, and then just walk over the side. It’d be easy. He’d be asleep before he knew a thing. And all the evidence of the struggle he was supposed to have been a part of would rot off long before they’d find his skeleton trailing lazily through the currents downriver, flesh peeling away in graceful strips like jellyfish tentacles. He was a romantic at heart. 

And yet also selfish. 

Why should he have to die to get back at him? Better, surely, to sit back and watch the fun unfold. Better and more dangerous for him. But… 

He took one pill, knowing that sleep would be difficult for a while, and went to bed naked. 

 

It was a sunny morning when he woke up. Ten o’clock. Far later than his usual seven-twenty. Dust motes floated in the sunbeam that streamed through the crack in the curtains. He rose and looked out. The pool had a single occupant, a woman with long, sun-browned legs sitting on a deck chair, sunglasses on. 

His face throbbed from the piercings, and his anxiety was flaring up again. He wished he’d been able to take his medication with him, but the police would have noticed it missing, and anyway, it wasn’t as if he could have walked in into the local pharmacy asking for a month’s dose of venlafaxine.

He dressed and brushed his teeth, cleaned his piercings, and then applied a layer of makeup over his face. Then he headed down to the first floor, where he got breakfast at the bar (he’d always found something endearing in the studied mediocrity of motel complimentary breakfasts), then went back up to change into swim trunks and grab a towel. 

The woman was still there, in addition to a few other people, when he stepped onto the concrete beach and put down his bag on an empty deck chair. The water was cold, the way he liked it, and he swam a few lengths, hoping that no one would take much notice of him. Most of the people at the motel seemed to want to keep to themselves. 

Well — mostly. 

“Hey.” The woman he’d seen earlier that morning leaned forward as he emerged dripping from the pool. “You’re 204, aren’t you?”

Loki froze as he toweled off his newly-shorn hair. “Yeah…”

The woman held out her hand. “We’re neighbors. 206. Saw you move in yesterday.”

“… Oh.”

“Like the hair.”

“Thanks.”

She tilted her head to one side. She was blonde, her hair had the awkward length of someone trying to grow out a haircut, and she wore an oversized white T-shirt over her wet pink bikini. 

“Didn’t catch your name?” she prompted.

“Loren.”

She smiled. “Amora. You don’t happen to blast Carrie Underwood at four AM, do you?”

“I’m not much of a country person, myself,” Loki said. 

“Good. ‘Cause the woman who had your room last, she did that every other night and it was annoying as shit.” Amora had produced a pack of cigarettes from somewhere. “Don’t suppose you have a light?”

“What kind of smoker doesn’t have a lighter?” Loki asked. 

“The kind that just fell off the wagon of self-denial,” Amora said. “Do you?”

“‘Fraid not.”

She sighed and pushed the cigarette back into the pack. “Just as well, I suppose.” She looked back up at him, tilting her head to one side as she took him in. “How long are you staying?”

“As long as it takes.”

She seemed to be eyeing him up and down, though Loki couldn’t say for sure; her sunglasses were mirrored and reflected back only himself — scratch that, only Loren. 

“Man trouble?”

He half-smiled. “Was it the hair?”

“That, and the foundation that’s dripping off your chin. Come to my room later on,” she added. “I’ll show you how to do it properly.”

Loki coughed uncomfortably. It would be better if he didn’t make friends, especially with someone he knew virtually nothing about. For all he knew, it could already have been reported that Loki Odinson was capital-M _Missing,_ that she’d recognized him, and that now she would try to use him to her own benefit, somehow. Besides, she seemed like such a beach town jewelry shop type of person, the sort of person who walked around with a pair of shorts over her bikini and a tank top in the back pocket in case she wanted to go inside someplace. Not his sort of person at all. 

But perhaps she was Loren’s.

He shrugged. “Why not?”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on Tumblr @williamshakennotstirred if you want to drop by!


End file.
